Looking For My Bae
by Snapegirlkmf
Summary: Rumple and Belle set off for New York to find Bae . . .and find a lot more than they bargained for as Bae has some secrets and revelations of his own he's been keeping and nothing is as you'd expect! Rumbelle, "Chocolate" verse! Sequel to "It's Called A Scavenger Hunt, Dearie" & "A Box of Chocolates". AU of "Manhattan". A father/son reunion fic!
1. A Startling Discovery

**Looking for My Bae**

**Snapegirlkmf**

"**Chocolate" verse 3**

_Day 1:_

Finally the day came when Rumple finished figuring out the way to keep his memories when he crossed the town line. It involved invoking the strength of his true love for the one he needed to find, and creating a potion from his memories of Bae, the best memories he could recall, and binding them to the shawl he had of his son. With it on, he could safely recall who he was even over the town line in a world without magic. Little did he know that was a bit of a misnomer. Blue had only assumed that, she did not know for certain. He also created a memory pendant for Belle, a locket with his picture in it, and a second potion he brewed which contained her happiest memories of him, putting a drop of it on the locket.

Then he booked two roundtrip tickets to New York, which was where his Seeing globe had shown him Bae was residing, in an apartment in Manhattan's upper West Side. He wondered what his son did for a living, since that part of the city was kind of ritzy. But the globe only showed where Bae was, and didn't give many details. But it was enough so Gold got an address from the apartment building and the street sign.

That would have to be enough. He and Belle packed a small suitcase each, intending to stay maybe a week before coming back home. During that time, Rumple prayed that he could reconcile with his estranged son and explain exactly what had happened to him at the portal, which had in fact nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the compulsion of the dagger, something he had never counted on and therefore had been unable to prepare for. And he had spent almost three lifetimes researching ways to overcome the dagger's compulsion and regretting ever letting go of Bae and agreeing to trust that shady Blue Fairy. Since he couldn't take the dagger with him, he made sure it was in a secure place. One only he and Belle knew about.

Regina was rather grouchy that he was leaving, especially since she had word from an unusual source that he mother Cora was trying to come to this new world to invade Storybrooke. "How can you leave at a time like this?" she had snapped at him in his shop the other day.

"Simple. I pack my bag and drive," he replied flippantly.

"My _mother_ is coming here!" she growled, frustrated. "Doesn't that concern you?"

"Not as much as it does you, dearie," he said maddeningly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're the one with the past problem with Mommy Dearest, Mayor. I, on the other hand, have a date to go and find someone I've been looking for for over three hundred years." He answered, with a note of total unconcern in his voice.

"Is _that_ all you care about, Gold?"

"To paraphrase you, I will do anything to find my son, he is my life," he growled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a plane to catch."

She glared at him. "I hope it malfunctions with you on it!" she said uncharitably.

"That's nice, dearie. Your well wishes for my safe return are greatly appreciated."

"Shut up, Rumple!"

"You know, dearie, if I were you, I'd be hoping I return, because without me, as they say here, you're up shit's creek without a paddle," he quipped, smirking. The he flipped the sign on his shop to "Closed".

Regina shot him another glare then muttered, "Bon voyage, Gold!" and stomped out, madder than a wet hen.

Rumple sniggered. "Temper, temper."

**Page~*~*~*~*~Break**

_Logan International Airport:_

Belle insisted on stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a toasted coconut donut. Rumple just had coffee because he was too nervous to risk putting anything in his stomach. Belle got him a cinnamon apple cider one to go. Then she asked if he wanted anything to read on the plane. She had brought her Nook with her, but Rumple had forgotten to pack any reading material, so anxious was he to get on the road after his confrontation with Regina.

"You wait here and I'll get you something," she told him, hurrying into the Barnes and Noble satellite store. She returned a moment later with two books, one called _Don't Sweat the Small Stuff_ and another on the Scottish hero Rob Roy, knowing he liked historical novels on Scotland.

He looked at the first book and murmured, "Is it that obvious?"

"Only to me," she replied. "Rumple, I know you're nervous, but please, you have to relax a bit."

He sighed. "I have longed for this moment almost my whole life, and yet . . .I am now as nervous as cat being chased by a pack of wild dogs."

"You'll be fine," she soothed. "Read this."

He lofted an eyebrow. "Have you?"

"Of course. While I was home laid up with my injuries."

His mouth quirked. "I should have known." He took the bag with the books and tucked it under his arm.

Soon it was time to get on line for the routine security check before they went through the gate for their flight.

Before them was a family of two dark-haired boys and a light brown haired girl along with their mother. The girl looked to be about eleven and the boys around nine and seven. The boys were playing with cell phones, and the girl looked bored. Suddenly, the younger boy whispered something and poked the older boy.

The elder boy scowled and pushed the younger one, and then he banged into his sister who hissed, "Knock it off, jerkface!" The girl in turn bumped into Rumple.

She immediately turned and said contritely, "Sorry, sir. My brothers are animals." Then she spun and hissed at the two boys, "You dumb butts! You almost made me knock over that poor old man with the cane!"

_I'm an old man now?_ Gold thought, half in amusement. He fasted a Look of disapproval on the two snickering boys like he used to give his son when he misbehaved.

The boys hung their head and muttered, "Sorry, mister."

Their mother looked like she wanted to die. "Please forgive them, sir. It's been a long delay. Pearce, Harvey, next time I ought to leave you home if this is how you're gonna behave."

"I had one just like him, ma'am," Gold said quietly. The two boys reminded him so much of his lost Bae it ached.

Her sons shuffled their feet and looked ashamed now.

Their sister rolled her eyes at them as if to say, "Brothers!"

"Thank you for understanding, sir," their mother said gratefully. "Come along you two, it's our turn next."

Up ahead there was a man at the security counter repeating the same tired line over and over. "All carryon items, coats and shoes please put them in the basket."

Belle frowned. She had heard about security procedures but this seemed crazy. "They want us to take off our shoes?"

Rumple grimaced, imagining stepping on the floor, even in his socks, where hundreds of people had been. "How very uncivilized!" he grumbled as he removed his Gucci loafers and put them in the basket along with his coat.

"Sir, you need to put your cane in there too," remarked a man behind them.

Gold turned. "I need it to walk."

"It says—all carry on items," pointed out the annoying man. "What don't you understand, old man? You dumb as well as crippled?"

Belle was incensed at his rudeness. "How dare you!"

He leered at her. "Hey babe, once you put your grandpa to bed how's about you and me having a good time?"

"I'd sooner sleep with a crocodile, you ignoramus!" she hissed angrily.

Gold's eyes narrowed. "If you don't mind your own business you're going to end up impaled upon my cane!"

Fearful this would escalate into a brawl and they would be thrown out of the airport, Belle took Rumple's arm and said, "Just ignore him, sweetheart. He has penis envy." Then she looked right at the gaping man, who was in his late twenties, and smirked.

Behind them a lady in her forties began applauding and hooted, "You sure told him, honey!"

Belle drew Rumple away, flushing slightly, and her fiance looked at her and whispered, "Really, dearie? I think he had a bad case of idiocy!" But Belle noticed he walked a little more confidently and stood straighter after that exchange.

As they went over by the scanner, the tech said, "Sir, you can use your cane to walk through the detector, but you need to put your scarf in the basket."

"My-my scarf?" Gold stammered. "But I can't . . .err . . ."

Belle understood and said quickly, "It's just for a moment, Rum. I'll help you." The tech was looking at them oddly and she swiftly improvised, "This shawl is very special to him, it belonged to his son who was MIA in the Gulf War and we've just recently discovered he's been released and are on our way to meet him. It was the last thing he had shipped home . . ."

The tech now looked understanding. "I'm glad you found him, sir. I hope your reunion is a happy one. I'll make sure nothing happens to this."

Rumple put the scarf in the basket, and then let Belle lead him through the metal detector, feeling disorientated and clumsy.

As soon as the scarf came into view on the other end of the conveyor belt, Belle grabbed it and put it on Rumple. Almost instantly he recalled himself and the befuddled look left his eyes. Collecting their belongings, they moved on down towards the gate.

Once on board the plane, after take off, Belle noticed Rumple looked terribly nervous and tried to get him to calm down by drinking some ginger ale and eating the donut she had purchased for him.

She wished there had been a way to contact Bae and get him to agree to meet them halfway somewhere, so Rumple didn't have to fly anywhere to find him. She knew her fiancé was a homebody and didn't like traveling so far from home. But he would do so in order to find the son he had lost so long ago. He had told her all about Bae and the portal on their way to Logan International Airport. And why he had been unable to go through it until the curse had ripped him from the Enchanted Forest.

Both of them had speculated and come to the conclusion that the Blue Fairy had most likely known about the fact that Rumple couldn't travel voluntarily to a Land Without Magic. She had intended to separate him and his son, perhaps in her stiff necked arrogant way assuming Bae was better off without his evil father.

Rumple just hoped that when he found his son he could get Bae to listen to reason. Or to even see him at all.

Feeling slightly ill, he drank some more ginger ale and read the books Belle had bought him. That and eating the donut kept him busy and his mind off his impending meeting for the rest of the flight.

When they landed at JFK, they took a cab to the address Rumple had, and Belle dozed as Rumple peered out the window at the skyline of Manhattan. Somewhere in that sprawling city that never slept was his son, whom he had damned himself for several times over. But he had never even considered stopping looking for him. Bae was his family, and his family meant everything to him, and always had. Not even the dagger curse had managed to sever that tie. And once he found Bae again . . .his quest would be complete.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

_Manhattan:_

Baelfire Spinner, as he was now known to the people of New York, having changed his identity from the former Neal Cassidy in order to make certain people of fanatical persuasion didn't find him after they had almost destroyed his family five years ago on shores of Loch Eala in the Scottish Highlands, was mixing up another palette and painting the way the mist had looked in the early morning as it rose off the loch, a sight he had seen many times from the window of the ancient Castle Swan Flight, the ancestral home of his wife Sorcha Lir. That place had been magical—a place where the realm of dreams and the earth had touched, a place where the swans flew in and out in the mists and swam upon the loch and made their nests along the shore. A place of moonlit trysts and silver dawn, a place where he had learned anew about hope, love, family, and the magic that dwelled in those of the Lir bloodline.

It was place that had captured his soul, as had the woman who dwelled there had captured his heart. Sorcha Lir had been an incredible artist with a beautiful gift , and she had given him back the heart and family he had thought forever lost to him. He shut his eyes and saw her there, in his memory, her sun-kissed dark hair blowing in the wind, her amber eyes glowing, in her green, blue, and gold plaid skirt and billowing white shirt, and when he opened his eyes, he looked across his studio to where the unfinished sculpture sat, partially hewn out of ice white Venetian marble, the body and wings of a swan outstretched, transforming into the upper body of a beautiful woman.

_Sorcha. My wild ebony swan. God, how I miss you._

Even now he could not recall her without a lump in his throat though it had been five years since he had lost her. But he would never forget. The curse of his eidetic memory as well as a very tangible reminder would always remind him of the one he had found by chance upon a summer's day on a hike in Scotland, walking among the heather with the sun shining upon her hair.

He dipped a brush in his paint and began to add some detail to the deerhound in the foreground, and then he swirled some more mist along the loch shore, close beside the castle on a hill.

As he did so, he glanced at his watch. He had forty-five minutes to paint left.

Just then his doorbell buzzed, letting him know there was someone at the gate who needed to be let through. Assuming it was one of his art students, as he was a professor at the prestigious Cooper Union college, he pressed a button and called, "C'mon up, the door's open!"

Some of his students sometimes had questions even after class was done and to certain ones he had given his home address so they could come and see him if needed. Art was not something you could discuss over the phone, or in a chatroom or a text usually. It required tactile supervision.

He heard footsteps and then the door to the apartment opened, as he had unlocked it as well. "I'm in here!" he called, his studio was just off the kitchen, and usually flooded with sunlight from the floor to ceiling windows on one side. A large drafting table and a chair were set up on one side, with colored pencils, pastels, and brushes on it, next to reams of paper. Easels and drop clothes, a broom and shovel, along with a large block of granite, a bucket of water and some clay dust lay in one corner of the room, with chisels and mallets. The other side was devoted to his paintings, some finished and mounted, others not yet completed. Photographs were pinned upon the walls and swatches of colors as well of all kinds of fabrics. One painting had a blue and green plaid half draped over it, of a swan swimming next to a cherubic baby girl.

He set down his palette and brushed his hands down his work apron, frowning as he saw some paint had spattered on his jeans-again. He looked up as the footsteps halted behind him. "Hey, what do you think of—oh my _God!"_

He nearly toppled right off his chair as he came face to face with a man he had never thought to see ever again.

"_Papa?"_

"Bae!"

That was almost all Rumple could manage just then, as his throat worked as he took in the man sitting before him, which was all that remained of the boy he once knew.

Bae looked to be around twenty-nine or thirty, his curly dark hair tamed a little, and trimmed somewhat shorter than usual. His face was tanned by the sun and wind and a little fuller than Rumple recalled. His son wore a blue plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up, and jeans with a smear of paint on it. Over that was a worn white apron with more smears of paint and other stains.

His eyes were still the same deep dark pools they had always been, and his hands clutched a paint brush as if for dear life. The glint of gold on his ring finger startled Belle into exclaiming, "Rumple, you didn't tell me your son was married!"

"Who are you?" Bae demanded sharply, finally regaining his powers of speech.

"I'm Belle French, your father's . . .fiancee," she replied, holding out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, Baelfire."

Bae took the pretty woman's slender hand in his, then spat out, "You—he—you're _engaged?"_

"You're _married?"_ Gold gasped.

"Was. I'm not anymore."

"Divorced?"

Bae gave a curt jerk of his head. "No. She died."

Gold's brown eyes glittered with sympathy. "I'm sorry, son."

"Me too," he gritted out. "What in hell are you dong here? No, how the hell are you here?"

"It's a long story," Belle began. "We came from a place called Storybrooke, Maine."

Bae arched an eyebrow. "You live in Maine?" he gaped again at his father. "But last time I saw you we were in the forest . . .does she know?"

"Belle knows everything. She also comes from our realm. We got here from a curse— "

"Figures," his son snorted. "You know what? I changed my mind. I don't want to hear any more. Because no reason you give me could ever make me feel like forgiving you for what you've done!" Bae's eyes flashed. "Get out!"

"Bae . . .Bae . . .please let me explain . . ." Rumple pleaded, feeling his heart shatter. He had known the boy would be angry, would not want to see him at first, but this coldness . . .it made him feel as if he had his heart ripped out.

"No! Just get out!" his son ordered hoarsely. He had to get rid of them.

"If you would listen to me," he tried again desperately. "I need to tell you—"

"I don't care!" Bae snapped. "You _abandoned me!_ You broke your deal with me!"

Rumple opened his mouth to speak again, determined not to leave without at least explaining why he had broken his deal, when Belle beat him to it.

"Baelfire, I understand you're angry with your father, but why don't you quit acting like a spoiled little boy and discuss this rationally like an adult? Or do you just look like one and act like the fourteen-year-old you were when you fell through that portal?"

Bae gaped at her. She looked at most to be ten years his senior and here she was lecturing him like—like—well . . .an elder sister or a mother! He opened his mouth to blast her too with his temper, when he realized suddenly that he _was_ behaving rather like an overwrought teenager, and not even allowing a real conversation to take place.

That was not the way he usually behaved. And then he recalled something his wife had said once, long ago when she had gazed into the waters of Loch Eala. _You lost someone very dear to you once . . .but the fault was not your own or his own . . .but someday you shall see him again . . .and learn the truth._

He shut his eyes. _Sorcha, Sorcha. You always did see clearly. _

A part of him wanted to just throw the two out. After all why did he need to hear his father's explanation after all these years? He knew what had happened at that portal. Or did he? He shook his head. All of his instincts were urging him to get his papa out of here, before it was too late.

Yet his heart was not cooperating. His heart . . .ah his heart was crumbling from looking at the man he had spent part of his life hating and at the same time longing for him because he loved him.

Belle could see him softening, and said, "Bae . . .may I call you that? Rumple always has. You know . . .he never stopped trying to find a way to get to you. Never. He spent his life, several lifetimes actually, trying to find a way to get you back, to undo what happened . . .and if he did all of that, why would he do so unless he never meant to let you go? If he really abandoned you, as you think, why would he care about finding you again? He even lit a candle on your birthday for remembrance."

"You did?" Bae was stunned. "But . . .the dagger, you only cared for power . . ."

"No. That's not true. I loved you, Bae. I took the dagger curse to save you. And I would have kept my promise but . . .it prevented me from doing so," Rumple explained.

Bae frowned. "How do I know that's the truth?" But he did know. His father was not lying, not twisting the truth.

And he couldn't bear to think he had spent his life hating a man who had never been what he had thought.

"Because why would I come all this way, across worlds, without my magic, if I just was going to lie to you?"

He groped for the shards of his anger which had been the thing that had sustained him for all those lonely nights on Neverland and before he had met Sorcha in Scotland. The anger that had fueled his will to survive. "You lied to everyone back then!" he snapped, unwilling to let it go.

"No. I didn't. I tried as much as I could to keep to every deal I made."

"You tricked people," Bae insisted.

"No, they tricked themselves!" Rumple argued. "How many times did I say _all magic comes with a price? Nothing is for free. Make sure this is what you want._ Thousands of times. And nine times out of ten, people ignored my warnings, believing they knew best . . .and they made deals they couldn't or wouldn't keep. They screwed themselves over, Bae. There was only one deal I ever broke in my life, and that was yours. And I have spent my entire _life_ regretting it," he declared passionately. "I know I'm a monster under the dagger curse, no one knows that better, but I never intended to let you fall through that portal alone. I couldn't go through it—because the dagger compelled me to remain, and since I am the dagger's servant, dearie, I couldn't refuse. Only by being cursed by a stronger magic is how I am here, because in this realm the laws are different, magic functions—when it does at all—differently and I can bend the rules of the compulsion a wee bit and come to find you."

"I don't want to hear this!" Bae cried angrily. His heart was now being crushed by guilt and he couldn't afford it. He couldn't risk having these two here when—"Okay, you've told me you couldn't leave or whatever, that doesn't change the fact that I spent half my life alone without my family." He knew that was a low blow, but he wanted to make his papa angry enough to leave.

Rumple just looked at him sorrowfully, his shoulders hunched.

It was Belle who snarled at him, "That wasn't his fault! You were the one who decided to believe the Blue Fairy's story and take the bean. You thought you could fix everything by traveling to this world and insisted on making that deal with your father. You chose to do so without finding out all the facts. Therefore you bear some of the blame on your shoulders too. You never should have trusted Blue, because she lied to you! She must have known Rumple couldn't go through the portal with you, she has always been his enemy! Don't you see, she wanted you removed from him, for whatever twisted self-righteous reason she may have had—and she gave you the means to do it and she lied to you. Just as she lied to others about their children."

"What others?"

"You aren't the first child to come here. There were two others we know about, but that's neither here nor there. My point is—isn't it time you stopped playing the blame game? I know Rumple made a mistake by promising you something he never could keep, but so did you. And holding onto that resentment for all these years isn't healthy. It festers and poisons you. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that a part of you—even in the tiniest measure—isn't happy to see the man you lost all those years ago?"

Bae flinched. For Belle's words pierced through the cloud of resentment and anger like swift swords. He sighed. "No. I can't." He bit his lip. "Look, we can discuss this some other time—"

Rumple's eyes narrowed. "Baelfire, what are you hiding from me? Why do you want us to leave so badly?"

Before his son could open his mouth to answer, the apartment door opened and shut, and a cheery voice called, "Hey, Dad, I'm home! Got anything to eat or did you forget to eat again cause you were painting?"

_No! No! No!_ Bae thought desperately, but it was too late.

Suddenly a girl wearing a purple jacket and jeans with a green top appeared in the studio doorway, "Da-ad . . .we're not in Scotland anymore, and you can't live off air remember? Oh!" Her jaw dropped as she took in the two people standing next to her father. "Whoa! It's the man from my Dream! He came here just like I said!"

Bae's jaw hit the floor. "What Dream?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "The one I tried to tell you about last week but you were too busy watching the Yankees game."

"Bae . . . is this . . .?" Rumple almost staggered into the wall as he turned to face a girl of about nine, with a similar shade of light brown hair though hers had a silvery streak in it, huge amber eyes, and his own face as a child staring back at him.

She held out a hand to him. "Hi. I'm Rhiannon Spinner." Then she did a doubletake as well, as she looked at the man before her and realized she was looking at herself as an adult. "You look like . . ._me._ Are we related?"

"Hello, dearie." Rumple took her hand in his, and felt an instant feeling of belonging flow through him. Then he said softly, "My name is Mr. Gold—"

"Rumplestiltskin," Belle added.

"And he's your grandfather," Bae finished.

**A/N: so what did you think of that little revelation? More will be revealed soon about everything. **

**The scene in the airport with the children was done because Bobby Carlyle (Rumple)'s children were actually in the episode Manhattan when he was on line in the airport so I wanted to put that in here somehow. I also wanted to have that scene with the idiot guy and have Belle handle him quite differently than Emma did.**


	2. Swan Maidens, Spinners, & True Love

**2**

**Swan Maidens, Spinners, and True Love**

Rhiannon looked from one adult to the other, then she turned to her father and stated, "But . . . you said Mom's parents died before I was born . . . and so did yours."

"You told her I _died?_" Gold snapped.

"It was easier than admitting you abandoned me!" Bae said somewhat defensively.

"But I _didn't _abandon you, I was cursed," Rumple began.

Rhiannon looked from one to the other. "First he's dead and now he's cursed? Dad, what's with all these lies?" She frowned at him.

"I didn't know how to tell you before . . ." Bae stammered guiltily, when the truth was that he hadn't known _how_ to tell her.

"Maybe your dad didn't know how he could get you to believe him?" Belle suggested gently, trying to play mediator.

Rhiannon turned her amber gaze upon the other woman. "Who are you? My grandma?"

"No, not yet," Rumple said. "We're engaged, not married."

"My name is Belle," Belle said.

The girl took her hand. "Like Belle from Beauty and the Beast?"

"Umm . . .yes," Belle nodded.

"Did _you_ know he was cursed?" Rhiannon wanted to know.

"I always have," Belle told her. "Then you—believe in magic?"

Rhiannon nodded. "It's kind of hard to not believe—with my mom being a Lir and me inheriting the powers of the family. After all I Dreamed Mr. Gold three times. Three times true."

"Whoa, you Dreamed him three times!" Bae gasped. "You never told me that!"

"I _tried_ to, but you were too busy cheering on Derek Jeter and the Yankees to listen to me," his daughter pointed out exasperatedly.

"You're a Seer, dearie?" Rumple queried gently.

"Yeah, sometimes." She cocked her head at him. "So . . . is your name really Rumplestiltskin? Can you spin straw into gold?"

"Yes to both questions."

The little girl huffed. "Dad, why didn't you ever tell me about him? Is this why our last name is Spinner?"

"Uh . . . yes, partly. And it's a long story," Bae sighed. "I hardly know where to start."

"How about at the beginning, like you tell me?" Rhiannon suggested.

"All right. Then let's go into the living room." Bae suggested.

Rumple and Belle sat down on the couch, which was a comfortable green suede sectional with colorful art deco pillows. Bae took off his apron and then went to wash up in the bathroom, while Rhiannon went into the kitchen to see what she could offer their impromptu guests to drink. Upon opening the fridge, the girl sighed and yelled, "Dad! Your forgot to buy some more iced tea and we're almost out of milk again!"

"I was going to go to the store later," he called back with a groan. He knew there had been something he was supposed to do today but had forgotten when he got caught up in his project.

"When? After we were eating Golden Grahams with water?" she called back sassily.

On the couch, Rumple snickered into his hand. "Well, some things haven't changed."

"I heard that, Papa!"

Rhiannon looked at the contents of the fridge in dismay, then walked out into the living room and said, "Umm . . .so what would you like to drink? We have . . .um . . . Aquafina and . . . orange juice . . .or . . .hot cocoa! I can make really good hot cocoa. With cinnamon and vanilla."

Belle looked at the excited child, recognizing Rumple's air of mischief and eagerness to please, and she couldn't help smiling. "Hot cocoa sounds lovely. Doesn't it, Rumple?"

"It does indeed, dearie. And you don't have to add milk to mine, I like it hot."

Rhiannon laughed. "Okay, but we do have enough milk for cocoa."

She skipped into the kitchen again, to begin making some.

Soon she returned with three mugs of hot cocoa on a small tray, each topped with some whipped cream with cinnamon. Bae was sitting across from Rumple in his recliner. "You make some for you, swan may?" he asked softly.

"Uh huh. But I can only carry three at a time, unless you want to have me trip and end up with second degree burns and go to the emergency room," she reminded him, handing him the one with extra cinnamon.

"No thanks! Had enough of them when you fell off the jungle gym that time at school and broke your arm," Bae shuddered.

Watching them, Rumple observed that the bond between father and daughter was as strong as the one he used to have with Bae, long and long ago. Clearly, Bae adored his sassy child, and seemed to accept that she possessed unusual talents. He wondered when that acceptance had occurred. Because the Bae he recalled as sassy fourteen-year-old had hated magic.

Or perhaps he had just hated the Dark One.

His granddaughter returned with her own mug of cocoa and perched upon the couch beside him, cradling the mug in her hands, the steam wreathing her pixie face and making it seem mystical and otherworldly.

It was a moment before Bae could stop staring at the two together and noting the unmistakable resemblance between them, not that he hadn't known before, but seeing them side-by-side really brought that trait into focus, and begin telling about his life as the spinner's son in the Enchanted Forest, with Rumple adding occasional clarification to some events.

Belle was as rapt as Rhiannon because she had never truly heard the tale of Rumple's past from anyone except in a brief paragraph in the Once Upon a Time book, where it stated he had been a spinner raising his son alone, known as the village coward, before he had become the Dark One. But now she heard the true story from those who had lived it, and she was profoundly awed and humbled at the great courage it had taken for Rumple to raise his son after being crippled and Milah leaving with scurvy Hook and being known as the town coward for refusing to fight in war and die for a cause he didn't believe in and that they had no chance of winning or even gaining an advantage.

When Bae came to the part where he sought out the Blue Fairy and she gave him the bean and the plan to leave the Enchanted Forest for this world, Rhiannon interrupted with, "Dad, why didn't you just use True Love's Kiss to break Grandpa's curse? You always told me that true love breaks all curses."

It seemed very obvious to her and she was puzzled why her father hadn't tried it first.

"Uh . . . I should have but . . .the Blue Fairy told me that love wouldn't be enough," Bae admitted.

"She _what?"_ Belle gasped.

"That interfering blue arsehole told ye that?" Rumple snarled, incensed. An instant later he muttered a quick apology for his language.

"Umm . . .yeah she did. Then she said the only way to free myself of your curse was to go to a Land Without Magic with the bean."

"Those were her exact words?" Rumple frowned.

"Yes . . . I remember them because . . ." Bae began, then he halted, realization finally dawning on him.

"She only spoke of _you_ freeing yourself from the curse, not Rumple," Belle repeated, her eyes widening.

"Dad, then the fairy _lied_ to you," Rhiannon exclaimed. "She didn't care about your dad freeing himself from the curse, only you. The Sidhe never tell the whole truth, they always keep something back. Remember, Mama used to say that you could never trust a fae, because they weren't like us humans, and they always had their own agenda. They can't totally lie but they can choose to leave things out."

"She's right," Rumple agreed. "It's as we thought, Blue deliberately misled you. Because she thought you by yourself was better than you with your cursed papa."

"Like she did with Geppetto and the wardrobe," Belle murmured.

"All these years I thought . . ." Bae put his head in his hands. These sudden revelations made his head throb and ache. He couldn't believe how he had been manipulated. "Papa, I never would have suggested . . ." he began helplessly, struggling to try and bridge the gulf caused by years of misunderstanding and manipulation. "If I had known the bean wouldn't work . . ."

Rumple flinched at the now raw pain in his son's eyes. "You wouldn't have insisted I go? Would you have stayed with me?"

Bae swallowed as he considered. The boy he was then . . .that desperate self-righteous child who knew nothing of the cost of magic, who knew only that his father had become a beast . . .would he have had the courage to stay knowing all he could do was watch his papa fall deeper under the spell of the dagger? He wanted to say yes . . .but he wasn't certain. So he said, "I would have liked to do that, Papa."

It was not the answer Rumple had hoped for. But the older man just nodded.

Rhiannon spoke up. "If you were cursed, Dad. I'd never leave you till I found a way to break it. I'd stay with you forever till I died."

"I know you would," Bae agreed, for that was the truth. "And you—you'd have found a way too, being who you are."

"You certainly know your magical lore," Belle said approvingly.

"I've read all the books I can find in the New York Public Library about that sort of thing," Rhiannon told her. "And my mom knew a lot too because of who her family was."

"And just who was your mama?" asked Rumple curiously.

"Her name was Sorcha Lir . . .and she was an artist and a swan maiden, a mortal descendant of Angus Og the Celtic god of love and his wife Bride, a swan maiden herself." Rhiannon recited. She touched the lock of her hair that was silvery. "And this is the mark of the swanborn—the white lock and the amber eyes. All the swanmays have them. Eyes that See within and without, past, present and future, with the power of love and healing and the ability to shift into a swan when I become a woman. That's the swanmay Gifts. Which can be passed down from generation to generation . . . though sometimes they skip."

She held out a pretty gold locket with a swan etched on it. "This was my mama's, I inherited it after she passed away and I've never taken it off. It's got a lock of her hair and a feather from her swan form in it along with her picture." She flipped it over to show the Lir family crest—a Highland thistle bisected by a swan in flight. "It will tell anyone who knows who I am, and where my ancestors come from—the Highlands on the shores of Lake Eala—which means Swan Lake—in Swan Flight castle."

Rumple's eyebrows rose into his hair. "You have quite a lineage, sweetling." He stared at his son. "And did you know of this magical lineage before you married your wife?"

"Yeah. She refused to marry me until she let me know exactly what—and who—I was marrying into," Bae said.

He recalled that day down by the loch as the wind rippled the surface of the water, making it sheen like glass, and Sorcha had taken his hand and whispered, "Before you say aught to me about love and marriage, Neal Cassidy, let me show you what you'd be marrying . . . because I will not say that I tricked you into marrying me without letting you know the truth . . ."

And she had told him the tale of the swan maidens of Lir . . .and how they possessed the magic of the Celtic gods and the blood of one of their pantheon, and it manifested in the ability to assume the shape of a great trumpeter swan.

"Swans mate for life, beloved, and so do we. For time out of mind, this has been our home—these rocky cliffs, and the wild meadows with the heather abloom, where we can be free and can fly and practice the craft we were born with—the magic of love and life, of birth and death, of the earth and sky."

He recalled the way the wind had come up, and tugged her dark hair free of the silver ribbon she had tied it back with, and set it free to cascade like black velvet down her back. Then she had transformed—into a rare ebony swan—and had flown in circles about him.

He had never forgotten that day—a day when he discovered that the magic he had run away from so long ago was not something to be feared, but something to be embraced, to be celebrated, and then he had caught the ebony swan in his arms and kissed her . . .until she transformed back into his beloved, as beautiful as the swan she had been, and as wild as the wind off the loch.

"There is my secret—the secret of the Lirs—and known only to those we trust. Can I trust you, Neal?" she had asked, her lips rosy from his kiss.

"You can, Sorcha. For I believe in magic, since I come from a place where magic is real, and I am the son of a spinner and a sorcerer . . ." and he had told her of his own origins, and together the spinner's son and the swanmay had pledged their undying devotion to each other, there at the edge where the earth met the sea and the sky, and the ancient Celtic god of love himself had blessed their union, providing rings of purest gold, and that ring he wore still.

And the best part of their union was the child standing beside him, tangible love and magic made flesh.

But then tragedy had struck . . .in the form of jealous and evil men, as an ancient society of witch hunters and fanatics, calling themselves the Edwardians—after the English King Edward I who had attempted to destroy Scotland and beat its people into submission back in the thirteen century, who was known as the Scots Hammer—had come again to bring violence and death upon the peaceful inhabitants of Glenneala—the village called Swan Haven—and hurt those under the protection of the Lirs.

One of them had been his wife.

That awful memory was engraved upon his heart, never to be forgotten.

_"Run, Neal! Run far away . . .across the sea . . .take Rhiannon and go . . .it's too late for me, beloved . . .but not you. Run from here, this is naught but a place of destruction now. Take a new name, a new life, and always remember . . .I love you . . ."_

_He had held her broken dying body in his arms, her heart's blood staining his hands crimson, he had cradled her head to his chest and wept, his tears spattering her face in an endless wave of sorrow. The bullet that had taken her life had been tipped with a special poison that killed her kind and prevented them from healing . . .and there was no time to make an antidote. _

_"Sorcha . . .no . . .no . . .please . . .!"_

_"I cannot . . .stay . . .not even for love . . .but remember when you see a swan flying . . .or see our daughter smile . . .that I am here . . ." she had touched his heart. "Always . . . love you . . .my spinner boy . . ." Then she had kissed him, one last kiss, and in that moment, he had felt the breath leave her body . . .and she had taken his heart with her . . .except for the pieces of it that remained so he could love their daughter._

He shut his eyes. _Swans mate for life . . ._

He had managed to protect their child that night, and returned only for the brief funeral the family held before setting out again, with a tiny four-year-old to a new country, and a new name, to make a new life away from the Edwardian menace . . .but he never forgot . . .or forgave . . .

Rumple saw the endless sorrow flit across Bae's features for a brief instant. He almost wanted to reach out a hand to clasp his son's shoulder, giving him what comfort he could . . .but he hesitated . . . "Bae . . .what happened to your wife? Was she sick?"

"No. She was killed . . .in an attack . . .while she was shopping down in the village . . . ."

"Like with a bomb?" guessed Belle, horrified.

Bae's mouth twisted. "Something like that." Magical nets and flame throwers and poison tipped bullets.

"They were crazy men. They hated my family . . .hated that we were different," Rhiannon whispered. "That's why we had to come here . . .so we could hide . . ." She went and hugged her father. "Dad doesn't like to talk about them . . . or mama, except . . .he paints her all the time . . ."

Bae buried his face in her hair. "That's right. Your mama lives in my artwork."

"The swan sculpture—" Belle began, her eyes glittering with tears.

"It's my mama," Rhiannon informed her. "It's supposed to be finished on her birthday. And Dad's gonna put it in his art show in May, right?"

"Yeah, that's right. Hopefully I'll be done with it by then."

"These men . . . Bae, are they still looking for you?" Rumple asked, concerned.

"No, Papa. Wherever they are . . .they won't find me. You see, I never used my real name when I married Sorcha, I used a different one . . ." he explained, too ashamed to reveal that Neal Cassidy had once been his alias as a thief . . .before he had gone straight and used stolen money from the sale of some watches to go to art school and make a new career for himself. In Scotland he had been determined to start anew, and he had . . .though he had kept his name to remind himself of where he had been . . .though only one person had ever known the truth and now she was gone.

"But when I came here, and started to make a name for myself among the artists here—I went back to using my true name . . .and since we were spinners, Papa, I made that my last name."

"We would have been called that eventually," Rumple agreed. "Most common people who took a surname back in our realm used their occupation for it."

"Yes, umm . . .well that was why I chose it . . .once I came here, that is," Bae said.

Rumple frowned. "Once you came here? What's that mean?"

"It means . . . the bean didn't take me here like the Blue Fairy said it should . . .it took me to . . .another realm that borders this one . . .the realm of . . .how did Sorcha put it again . . .storybook lands become real . . .in a way. It was a realm where the Victorian London of Peter Pan existed . . .and I ended up there . . .and met the Darling family and then was taken by the Shadow away to Neverland for a long time."

"You . . .were on Neverland?" Rumple stammered. "On that—that slave island?"

"Neverland is an island with slaves?" gasped Rhiannon. "I thought Peter Pan lived there."

"He does, sweetie, but remember how I told you some stories aren't like the real thing?" Bae said quietly. "Well, this was what I meant. Neverland is . . .well it's not like JM Barrie's story . . it's darker . . .and Pan is not . . .the way he's written at all or like in the movies . . .he's more like a despot . . .and his Lost Boys are like slaves to him . . .In fact that's how I ended up there. The Shadow brought me to a pirate ship, one that was captained by a man named Hook . . .and he brought me the rest of the way to Neverland and gave me to the Lost Boys."

"Dad, you were a Lost Boy?"

"Yes . . .until I escaped . . .by using my head," Bae replied, telling how he had trapped Pan's shadow in a coconut and used it to fly off the island. "Once it brought me here, where I insisted it take me, I could finally grow up, and here I am."

Rumple sensed there was more to the Neverland story than Bae was telling him, but he figured it was because Rhiannon was listening. He knew Pan from long ago . . . the current Pan that is, for it was actually a title held by several boys and not just the name of one boy in particular. And if he were right . . .he grimaced. He would ask Bae what the true name of this Pan was.

"And while you were doing that, I was searching for you, and eventually cursed by a former student of mine, Regina, the Evil Queen of the Enchanted Forest, to come to this world." Rumple told him.

"We were all cursed," Belle too over the narrative, naming all the many popular fairy tale characters now in Storybrooke.

Rhiannon's eyes were almost saucer like as she cried, "So you really _are_ like the Belle in Beauty and the Beast!"

"Um . . . well, sort of . . ." Belle coughed, then told her story with Rumple.

By that time, Rhiannon was starving and so were the rest of them.

"Dad, let's get pizza at Gino's," suggested Rhiannon.

"Again? But we had that like . . .last week," he laughed.

"So? Now you can try a new slice of pizza," she pleaded. She looked over at Rumple and Belle. "And . . .they've never had New York pizza before. Right?"

"No, since this is our first time here," Belle agreed.

"Yeah and they can't make decent pizza in Maine. Maine's got lobster," the girl remarked.

"Okay, I suppose we can get a bite to eat," Bae agreed, rising from his chair.

"And then we need to go find a hotel to stay at," Rumple said to Belle.

His granddaughter scowled. "A hotel? Dad, you're gonna make them stay in a hotel? When they could stay here with us?"

Bae looked somewhat uncomfortable. "Rhee, maybe they've already made reservations . . ." he began lamely.

"Besides, dearie, where would we sleep?" Rumple said, not wanting to impose upon the family.

"On the pull out bed this turns into," Rhiannon indicated the couch. "It makes a double bed." She gave her father a sharp Look. "Dad, they're _family._ You gonna make them pay to stay somewhere when we've got room for free?"

Bae groaned. He still wasn't sure how he felt about seeing Rumple again, despite the revelations he'd learned about Rumple's curse, he knew his daughter was right. Family was family . . .and he'd feel like an utter heel if he let his papa and his . . . almost stepmom—God that sounded so _odd—_rent a room especially considering the prices for a decent hotel in Manhattan were very expensive, when he could put them up without a problem. At least in the room department.

He held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, you've just beat me over the head with my own book of manners, swanmay. They can stay."

"Yes!" she jumped up and hugged him. "You're the best, Dad!"

"Got that right. Now how much is this gonna cost me?" he joked, kissing the top of her head.

She beamed up at him. "Nothing. Cause love is always free," she responded happily. "Besides, you're always telling me that you never know how bad you miss something until you no longer have it, so you must've missed your dad really bad, huh?"

"I . . .yeah . . .I did . . ." he admitted softly, only now realizing that simple fact. As much as he had said he was angry and didn't want to see his father ever again as a kid on Neverland, a part of him had missed Rumple . . .more than he had ever known.

"Okay, let's get some pizza," he said, and then ushered them all out of the apartment.

**Page~*~*~*~*~Break**

Rumple wasn't at all sure about staying over Bae's apartment that night. He knew that Bae had been more or less persuaded to do so by his irrepressible daughter than because he honestly wanted Rumple around, and Rumple didn't like being a burden upon anyone. Especially not family. He nudged Belle as they were walking a few feet behind Bae and Rhiannon, giving her a meaningful glance and handing her the brochure for the hotel they had selected before coming here.

She cocked her head, a little puzzled but understanding his reasoning. "I'll call later," she mouthed, not wanting to ruin the small family gathering too soon.

But she knew it was awkward for Bae and most likely for Rumple also after so much time apart and so many years on Bae's end of things feeling betrayed by his father. It would take time, that was all.

She tucked the brochure into her purse as they went into the pizza place.

Neither of them noticed two sets of narrowed angry eyes behind them.

Gino's Pizzeria was a typical New York pizza joint, with the colorful red and white checkerboard table cloths and simple wooden chairs with matching embroidered chair covers. Each table boasted a little roundabout with a glass container of grated cheese, salt and pepper shakers, a toothpick holder, napkin holder and a bottle of ketchup, for in addition to pizza they also had cheesesteaks and hamburgers.

Bae picked up several menus as they walked in, and a waitress showed them to a table. As they sat down and gave an order for drinks, Rhiannon said, "Dad, are you gonna try the triple cheesesteak pizza or the barbecue chicken one this time? I think I'm gonna have the Polynesian."

Belle was curious. "What's that?"

"It's a pizza with ham, bacon, pineapple, cheese and tomatoes on it," the child informed her. "Dad and I always try a different slice of their special pizzas when we go here. And then we get half a plain pie just in case we don't like it."

"That makes sense," Belle said, and examined the menu. Some of the specialty pizzas made her eyes bug out. "Do they _really_ have a pizza with—clams, shrimp, white sauce, garlic and _anchovies_?"

"Yup," Bae nodded.

Rumple made a face. "Dearie, that sounds disgusting . . .how about this one? Sausage, escarole, ricotta, garlic, and olive oil. A white sausage pizza."

Belle nodded. "Or this one—a cheeseburger pizza. Ground beef, American cheese, onions, tomatoes, and pickles with ribbons of ketchup."

Rumple started laughing. "Oh it figures _you_ would find that one!" He saw another one that looked interesting. "Chinese chicken pizza—orange chicken pieces, crisp Chinese cabbage, slivered almonds, crispy noodles and special soy-orange sauce. Comes with fortune cookie."

"That sounds very interesting, Rumple," his fiancée said. "Why don't you get that and that other one with the sausage and I'll get the cheeseburger one and a plain one too?"

"Why don't we do a sample pie?" Bae suggested. "That's where you get to make a pie with each slice a different kind of pizza—and we can all try some. We can have two of each of our five kinds. And then we'll have another small pie of just plain pizza with thin crust?"

"That'll do me," Rumple agreed.

"Sounds great!" Rhiannon grinned.

"Fine with me," Belle said and sipped her iced tea with lemon.

"And for dessert we can get the dessert pizza," Rhiannon sang.

"Dessert pizza?" Rumple queried. "I'm almost afraid to ask what's on that."

"It's a shortbread crust pizza with icing, peanut butter cup pieces, chocolate sauce, caramel drizzle and a cherry on top," she read from the description.

"Now that sounds . . .wonderful," Rumple remarked.

"I think I gained ten pounds just listening to that description," Belle sighed. "But it does sound so delicious."

"Let's just see how dinner goes first. We might be too full to even eat it," Bae warned.

Their order came after fifteen minutes and everyone had fun trying a slice of each specialty pizza. All of them were delicious, though they all agreed that the best tasting one was Belle's cheeseburger pizza, followed by Rumple's white sausage.

"Would you like to open the fortune cookie, Rhiannon?" asked her grandfather.

"Let's do it together," she suggested, and they both took a side and pulled.

The cookie split in half and the fortune tumbled out.

Gold picked it up. "_Family is the heart of a home, seek and ye shall find."_

"Well, that's fitting," Belle declared and they all agreed.

They did end up getting the dessert pizza, though a slice a piece was all they could manage. But it was as great as it sounded. Bae had a box to take the rest back home.

"I think I need to take a walk," Bae said, patting his tummy. "So I can work off some of this food I just ate. Let's take a walk through Central Park."

"Cool!" Rhiannon yelled, then she ran ahead of them a few feet.

Gold watched her and chuckled. "Oh, if only I had half that energy now." He limped along with his cane. "Must be getting old, I guess."

"You're not old where it counts," Belle replied. "Here." She laid a hand over his heart. "Do you still want me to call the hotel?" she whispered.

"Umm . . . wait a bit," he counseled, not wanting to spoil the warm afterglow of this family outing.

They strolled along casually, with Bae pointing out some of the sights as they walked. Rhiannon chattered happily about some school project she had involving a portrait of her ancestors.

Several teenagers on skateboards went by, and two waved at Bae, and yelled, "Hey, s'up, Prof Spinner?"

"Hey, Tommy, Connor!" he waved back. "Those are some of my art students," he said to Rumple and Belle.

Mr. Gold smiled thinking how funny it was to see his son, who had been a boy a little younger than those on the skateboards that had just passed, a grown man—a teacher and a father no less.

_How time flies. And I hope that we can finally reach an understanding. Life is too short, _ he thought.

They rounded a bend in the path and for a few moments were hidden by some thick maple trees.

"Look, you can feed the ducks and geese on that pond over there," Rhiannon pointed to the lake, where some waterfowl swam.

"Don't forget the swans," giggled a pretty African American woman in a soft gray warm up suit as she jogged by.

"Swans?" Rhiannon frowned. "But there are no swans here."

"Sure there are, sweetie," smirked a slightly older man in jeans and a NYU sweatshirt. "Because _you're_ here now!"

Bae spun, glaring at the man who suddenly seemed more menacing than friendly. "Hey, man. What are you talking about?"

The man, who had glasses, suddenly scowled and hissed, "Those who harbor witches shall be painted with the same brush! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live—or a witch's mate! Surprise, Cassidy!"

Bae blinked in shock. Then he lunged at the other man, yelling, "Papa! Get Rhiannon outta here and call the cops!" He swung a right hook at the grinning Edwardian. "Eat this, you fanatical bastard!"

As the two attacked each other, scuffling savagely, Belle dialed 911 on her phone, just as the pretty jogger who had spoken about swans doubled back and cried, "Time to join your mama in hell, witchling!"

She came at a startled Rhiannon with a strange looking black object that spit sparks. It looked like a tazer.

Rhiannon screamed and ducked away, running around and yelling, "Help! We're being mugged!"

"Shut up, brat!" snarled the woman, whose name was Tamara LeBeau. She went to chase after the fleeing child, her face like chipped granite, devoid of any emotion save hatred.

"Leave my granddaughter _alone!_" Gold rasped, and whacked the woman with his cane.

"Oww! You rotten old bastard!" Tamara yelped. "I'll teach you to interfere with my hunt, you wicked gargoyle!"

Gold raised his cane to hit her again, but she proved more agile than she looked, and ducked under his swipe and came up with the tazer in her right hand.

Before he could stop her, Tamara slammed the tazer down right into Gold's chest.

The electrical pulse zapped poor Rumple right in the heart.

He fell backwards, his limbs seizing and there was a strange lightning-like jolt in his chest. His mouth worked but no sound came out.

"_Rumple!" _Belle shrieked in disbelief and horror.

Rhiannon spun, her hands coming up, and saw her grandfather topple to the ground, his body illuminated by weird electrical sparks. "No! Get away from him, you crazy bitch! Get _away!_" Without conscious thought, she _repelled_ Tamara, with her nascent powers.

Tamara was thrown right into a tree and slumped down at the base.

"Rumple!" Belle was sobbing as she knelt beside her stricken fiancé, who was gasping and turning blue. "I think . . .it's his heart!"

"Belle . . ." Rumple croaked out. " . . .love . . .you . . . tell . . .Bae . . .I'm sorry . . ."

A frantic Rhiannon dialed 911, yelling into the phone that her grandpa had been mugged in Central Park and was having a heart attack, they needed to send an ambulance immediately.

Belle gripped Rumple's hand, terrified. "Rumple . . .please . . ."

"so . . cold . . ." Rumple gritted out over the suffocating weight on his chest. His vision began to blur, though he could swear he saw Belle, Bae, and Rhiannon hovering over him.

"Papa . . .don't go . . ." Bae pleaded desperately. " . . .don't leave me again . . ."

His son's face was wet with tears.

Rumple tried to lift his hand to wipe them away, but his hand wasn't cooperating.

"No! You can't go . . .not like my mama . . ." sobbed a child's voice. Tears spattered the sorcerer and they seemed to glow with a silvery light.

For an instant Rumple felt the crushing weight ease.

"Dad! We have to do CPR! Or kiss him! Something!" Rhiannon cried raggedly.

Rumple felt himself slipping away . . . then fiery wings of light surrounded him . . .and he felt three sets of lips kiss his skin . . .and then a wave of brilliant light rolled over him . . .and he felt the final black talons of the Dark One's curse shrivel up and wither away.

_True love breaks all curses . . .and I am free at last . . ._

Then he let the wings carry him away.

"Sir! Sir! You need to move!" yelled a paramedic at a stricken and dazed Bae. "We need to start CPR! Stat!"

Hands pulled him away from his papa's still form, then began working over Rumple frantically.

"Sir, can you tell us what happened?" asked a police officer softly.

"We . . . we walking and then . . .these people attacked us . . .one of them had this . . . thing . . . like a tazer . . . and my papa . . .he saved my little girl . . ." Bae choked up. "He saved her . . ."

"I'm sorry, sir, but can you identify your attackers?" pressed the officer.

"There," Bae pointed to where Tamara lay against a tree. "That's the one who tried to kill my little girl. Crazy. Junkie bitch."

They were starting chest compressions and had given Gold a shot of epinephrine and had a crash cart prepared.

Belle and Rhiannon clung to each other, stunned by the sudden tragedy.

Then a paramedic cried, "He's back! Come on, we need an IV, nitro, hurry!"

As they placed the newly revived Rumple on a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance, Bae called, "Belle, Rhee, go with him! I'll meet you there." He went and kissed Rumple's forehead before they pushed the stretcher into the ambulance. "I love you, Papa."

Then he turned back to the policeman, his face tight. "I want that monster in custody, officer! She nearly killed my papa!" he pointed to the motionless Tamara, whom he recognized from another night years before, when he had held his broken ebony swanmay in his arms. "She's a terrorist and five years ago she murdered my wife."

The ambulance sped off into the night, siren wailing, leaving behind two unconscious suspects, a puzzled policeman, a crushed pizza box, and a son who was praying with every breath that the father he had lost so long ago would live for the family he had just found again.


	3. Coming Home

**3**

**Coming Home**

Bae accompanied the officer, whose name was Lieutenant Jethro Gibbs, downtown to the police station, after they had arrested Tamara and the man that Bae had knocked out. The man began to come around in the squad car and they interrogated him after they had arrived at the station, while Bae was filling out forms and answering questions from another officer, Tony DeNozzo.

"We're very sorry that your father was hurt in the attack," Tony said sincerely. "As soon as we've gotten your statement regarding the attack here and also what you've said about your wife, we'll drive you over to Columbia and you can see your dad, okay?"

"Thank you." Bae said softly, blinking. His heart felt like a lump of lead in his chest. _Oh Papa. Please be okay. Please. _"My papa was here visiting me for the first time since I moved here . . ."

He told the police everything he could recall about the attack in the park, they already had a positive ID on the man Bae had fought. He came up as a Greg Mendel, but they soon found it was an alias and his real name was Owen Flynn. He was linked to several radical hate groups, including one that seemed to target people of different religious persuasions, and one terrorist group that had been based in Scotland. They also had ID'd Tamara the same way, finding she also had connections to a underworld crime syndicate out of New Orleans, a cult based upon the voodoo queen Marie LeBeau.

Then Bae told him about Sorcha, and the attack when she died five years ago in Scotland.

"I'll check Interpol for that, but this sounds like the same group. And you're positive this woman shot your wife?"

"When I found my wife, she was dying from a bullet to the chest," Bae said hoarsely. "I ran to her, and as I did, that woman that hurt my papa was standing there, and she laughed and said, "Next time I'm coming for you!" Then she ran off before anyone could stop her. Not that there was anyone who could have—it was like a war zone. People were screaming, crying, and there were bodies all over."

He shuddered. "I still have nightmares about it. That was when I had to leave, after the funeral, I took my daughter and came here. I changed my name, under the direction of the detectives I spoke to then. Used my mama's maiden one and my actual one, Neal was my middle name, see, and my parents divorced when I was four, Cassidy was the name of my stepdad. That was my married name."

Once he had given them all the information, and had signed statements to charge Tamara and Greg with assault and attempt to kill him and his family, as well as injuring his elderly father and causing him to have a heart attack, Gibbs offered to drive him to the hospital.

Rhiannon had called his cell and told him that they had done some tests upon Rumple and said that besides the incident that had resulted in his cardiac arrest, his father's heart was otherwise healthy, and there were no blockages any longer or collapsed veins. They had done bloodwork and said Gold's cholesterol and triglycerides had been normal, though he was still in shock and was being given electrolytes and pain medication through an IV.

He was in Room 314 in the cardiac care unit.

"How's your dad?" Gibbs asked after he had finished speaking to Belle.

"He's . . .stable . . .and they think this occurred because of the stun gun or whatever the hell she shot him with," Bae replied.

"Whatever that was, Mr. Spinner, it wasn't a stun gun," Gibbs murmured. "We have weapons analysis examining it right now, and it's some kind of modified creation. Apparently it shoots an electrical pulse through you, which could explain why your dad had a heart attack. She basically triggered it by shocking him right in the heart. He's lucky he didn't die."

"He flatlined. They revived him," Bae said.

"I'll make a note of it," Gibbs said then did so. "Okay. Let's get on over there."

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

He found Belle and Rhiannon sitting in a small room outside the CCU, for they were only allowed inside the room for brief moments at present. "Belle, how is he?"

"He's doing better. His blood pressure is still elevated, but they think that's because of the effect of the tazer shock. They've given him some aspirin and some blood pressure medication through his IV and he's on morphine and oxygen. He hasn't woken up except briefly in the ambulance to ask where he was. They said he might have tingling in his hands or feet or be confused when he wakes up. They've run scans on his brain and found no abnormalities. But they said he might sleep for several more hours, and we're only allowed to be in there for 15 minutes at a time."

"I'll need to speak to his doctor." Bae said, and hugged her and Rhiannon. "The police have the ones who hurt us in custody now, and if I played my cards right, they're going to stay there for a long time."

"Good," Rhiannon said heatedly. "They deserve to."

After Bae had spoken to Gold's cardiologist and gotten all the results from the tests, he was allowed into the room where his father lay sleeping.

Bae walked into the room, which was sterile and had a simple bed with a blue blanket tucked around his papa's slender form, which was hooked up to a heart monitor and several IV's. He was wearing a standard blue gown, and Bae's breath caught as he gazed at him.

Rumple looked so pale and frail lying there, his hair flopping over to one side, eyes shut, with oxygen tubes in his nose.

Bae pulled up a chair and sat as near to the bed as he dared. He gently took Rumple's slender poet's hand in his, thinking of how often he had seen that hand spinning, sewing, and cooking. Gesturing as he spoke, and conjuring wonders. Holding him as a child when he woke from nightmares, stroking his hair, giving him a hug. And rarely reprimanding him. Those hands had fed, loved, and protected him all throughout his childhood. Those hands had taken a soul-crushing curse for him and killed those who would have harmed him.

His own hand slid over his father's, and he bent his head and kissed it, his lips barely grazing the pale as parchment skin. "Papa . . .you must get well. Please. For Belle. For Rhiannon. And . . .for me. _Please._" He shut his eyes, tears spilling over his lashes and onto the hand in his own. "I know I don't have the right to ask you to stay . . .not since it's my fault you're like this. It was my fault for a lot of things. You being cursed, you crippling yourself . . .you did everything for me . . . and I never really appreciated half of it. But I do now. I spent half my life being angry with you, for the choices you made, and I never really understood why you made them. But I do now, Papa. I understand everything. Because for my baby girl—I would do anything." He gave the hand a gentle squeeze. "She is my light and my life. Like I was yours. Sorcha told me once, that my anger and resentment would be my undoing, and that life was too short to waste it on blaming you for my own choices. She was right. But then, she usually was. She always understood me better than I did myself."

He glanced at the heart monitor, relieved to see it was continuing its steady beeping. "I'm so sorry. I just wish you were awake to hear me say it. I wasted half my life hating someone who loved me beyond all reason. And all I did was hurt myself. I spent half my life running and trying to find something I lost . . .my family. And I ended up creating my own, but . . .it was never complete. Because you weren't there. I told Sorcha that home was a place you knew was home when you just missed it because you were no longer there. Well, you know you really love somebody when you wake up everyday and wish they were there. The way I miss Sorcha. And the way I missed you."

He didn't expect any response from the comatose man in the bed. Yet he knew somehow his father heard him. Sorcha had explained to him about the twilight world between asleep and awake, where dreams were born. She had told him that sometimes the two touched and the veil thinned—and part of your mind was aware of what went on in the waking world even as you wandered in dreams. "You know how you remember people speaking to you, even when you know you were asleep and couldn't possibly have heard them? It's then that your mind touched that place between, and you really did hear what was said. The mind is a powerful wondrous thing, Neal. And the mind of the magicborn, ten times so."

Suddenly the heartbeat changed, and Gold's eyes fluttered open. They met his own, and Bae was suddenly struck by how they had the same eyes, that deep knowing sorrowful brown. "Papa?"

"Bae."

"You're gonna be okay. The woman that did this is in jail. You're safe."

"Where's Belle?"

"She's here. You're in the hospital but you're gonna be all right. You saved Rhiannon."

"Good. That's good." He gave a wry smile. "Bae . . .all I ever wanted . . . all I spent years doing . . . was trying to find you and tell you I was sorry and I loved you."

"I know." He bowed his head and touched his father's hand. "And now you have. I'm sorry I was such an ass to you. Then and now. I love you too."

"It doesn't matter. Do you forgive me?"

"Yeah if you'll do the same."

"Not even a question." He yawned. "Tired."

"That's the drugs they gave you. Knocks you out." Bae told him.

But Rumple's eyes had already shut and he'd fallen back asleep before the nurse came in to check on him and gently shoo Bae out of the room.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

Rumple spent thirty-six hours in the CCU, then was moved to a bed upstairs on the fourth floor for recovering cardiac patients, which was a step down from the continuous round the clock care those patients received. Now he could have regular visitors and they could stay for normal visiting hours. He no longer needed the oxygen and was breathing normally. His color was better and so was his blood pressure.

His doctors were astonished, not realizing some of his miraculous recovery was due to the child who was down in the gift shop right then, picking out a get well present with Belle. "For someone who came here so weak and well, almost dead from an attack like that, Mr. Gold, you seem to have bounced back from it amazingly well," his heart doctor said that morning.

"I've always been a quick healer," Gold said.

"Nevertheless, I'm very pleased. I guess it goes along with the two other miraculous things we've had happen this weekend."

"What things?" Bae asked, puzzled.

"Well, there was an elderly woman patient suffering from advanced stages of kidney disease on dialysis and . . .I really don't know how to explain this one, except an act of God, but . . .she's growing an entirely new kidney! She had one removed, you see. And then there was the patient in the children's ward who was diagnosed with acute leukemia and she was up here getting tested to make sure the chemotherapy didn't damage her heart and . . .her blood tests came back normal . . .she no longer has cancer." He spread his hands. "I can't explain that one either, the child was very ill . . .it's like some angel's hand touched them or something."

_Yeah, an angel named Rhiannon,_ Bae thought, groaning inwardly. It seemed he would have to have another talk with his daughter about using her magic. "That's great, though," he said to the doctor. "So, when can my father come home?"

"Oh I'd say in another two days, we'd like to keep him a bit for observation."

"That sounds good."

"Did they ever catch the animal that did this to him?" asked the physician, a young man in his late thirties.

"Yeah they have her and her partner in custody, turns out this wasn't the first time they've done this, and they're gonna be looking at Riker's Island for a long time." Bae told him. Which was true. Lieutenant Gibbs had contacted Interpol and they had confirmed that their suspects had matched descriptions and fingerprints found at the scene of the crime years ago, and they were still wanted there by Scotland Yard. Once they had served their sentence in the States they would be extradited to the UK and face trial and sentencing there as well.

"Well, I'm glad they caught them. Because no one deserves to be attacked just walking in the park with their family." Then the doctor bid them good day and left.

Bae shook his head and said softly, "I gotta talk with that kid again, about using her magic . . ."

"Is this the first time she's done so?"

"No. She's used it before, but it's normally not like that. To heal. She Dreams sometimes. Like she said. But I think . . .it's getting stronger as she gets older."

"That would make sense. She needs to have a teacher, Bae."

"Yeah well, it's not like they advertise in the Yellow Pages, Papa. Who am I gonna call? Wizards Anonymous?" Then his gaze sharpened. "Unless you're volunteering."

"I don't know if I can, Bae. Magic doesn't work for me here like it does for you. And then . . .I don't even know if I have magic any longer. Because my curse is broken."

Bae's jaw fell open. "It's _what_? How?"

"True Love breaks all curses. Belle started it on Easter, when she accepted my proposal and kissed me. Then I think you and Rhiannon and her completed it when you kissed me when I was dying," Rumple informed him. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"You're sure? That it's gone, I mean?"

Rumple nodded. "Yes, I'm sure. The weight on my soul is utterly banished, and I haven't felt this good in over three hundred years." He smiled at his son. "So you needn't feel guilty anymore, Bae. You did what you wanted to all those years ago."

"Not just me, Papa. _We_ did it. Your family. I guess the Dark One curse couldn't be broken by just one person, it needed a whole family."

"That is very possible. I don't know specifics, since no one besides me has ever done so. In fact the others before me all assumed there was only one way to break the curse—by someone killing them." Rumple mused.

"Maybe your curse was able to be broken because you were the only who ever took it for someone else and not yourself?" His son hypothesized.

"Very true. But whatever the reason, it's gone, and I am free. Free to make my own choices again without its influence coloring my every action." He leaned back in bed and sipped from a glass of chilled water.

Just then Rhiannon and Belle came into the room, Belle had a vase of roses in her hands and Rhiannon held a cellophane wrapped chocolate swan with a red heart. "Grandpa, look what I found at the gift shop. It's connected to a homemade candy store and when I went to see what kind of chocolate they had, I found this!" She went and placed the chocolate sculpture, which had a card attached saying _Get well soon, love Rhee_, on his tray table.

Gold's eyes lit up when he saw the chocolate swan. "That's beautiful, dearie." He carefully unwrapped the cellophane to reveal the graceful animal, which was almost as large as his head. "I hope you don't expect me to eat all of this, though." He went to pick up the sculpture and admire it, when the "heart" began to beat gently.

"Rhiannon!" Bae exclaimed.

"What? It's just a little charm, Dad."

Bae shook a finger at her. "Hey, you know you're not supposed to use magic where people can see."

"No one saw, Dad. Except Belle," Rhiannon objected. Then she turned to her grandfather. "A heart full of love."

Gold set the swan chocolate down and hugged the small girl. "Just like my granddaughter." He gave her the identical grin she had given him.

"Oh, great. He's known her for three days and she already has him wrapped around her little finger," Bae shook his head.

Belle laughed. "Did you expect anything different?"

"Um . . .no . . .because he's always loved kids." Bae recalled. "Even when he was the Dark One, he saved kids from the Ogre Wars. Thousands of them were dying and he brought them home."

"I knew he had stopped the Second Ogre Wars . . . but I never knew how," Belle admitted.

"Well, that was how. He also forbade the old duke and any of his relations to conscript anymore children," Bae said, wondering how he could have forgotten such a significant event until now. "And now . . .his curse is broken."

Belle looked as if she was going to pass out. "It is? He's not the Dark One anymore? But how?" Then she held up a hand. "Wait! Don't tell me. When we all kissed him . . .that broke the curse. Just before he . . .died."

Rumple looked up from where he and Rhiannon were breaking the heart portion in half. "That had to happen, dearie. Magic's price, you know. But it never said I couldn't be revived. I think your tears had something to do with that, Rhee. A swanmay's tears must be a potent healing elixir."

Rhiannon shrugged. "I dunno. Mom never told me that. She just said that magic needed to be done in groups of three."

Bae cocked an eyebrow at her. "Really? I suppose that's why some lady's growing a new kidney? And a child no longer has leukemia?"

His daughter looked slightly guilty. "After I healed Grandpa, I had to heal other people too, so when I went to get water from the vending machine I saw two people in the hallway nearby. They were talking about things they wished they could do, but had never gotten the chance to. The old lady wanted to see her grandkids in Florida only she was too sick to travel and they couldn't afford the airfare. And the kid was saying she wished she could be in her school play, cause they were doing Rumpelstiltskin that year and that was her favorite fairy tale. Dad, it was like a sign! So I let my healing magic flow over them . . .and nobody saw it. I just asked it to heal them as much as it could."

"And it healed them like _that?"_

"Healing magic like hers is very powerful, and always responds to the deepest wishes of the heart," Gold said.

"No wonder you were so tired last night. You fell asleep reading _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."_ Her father remarked.

"CS Lewis!" Belle cried. "I love those books! Have you read them all?"

"Yup. Which one was your favorite?"

Belle thought for a moment. "I think . . .The Silver Chair. Because you needed wits to solve all the riddles for Aslan's quest."

"Me too! But I also liked The Horse and His Boy."

While the two bookworms chatted about the Chronicles of Narnia, Bae looked at Rumple, who was eating his half of the heart-shaped red chocolate, and asked, "So, what are your plans once you get out of here? Are you going back to Maine to Storybrooke? Or are you thinking about staying here in New York? Or can you get back to our old realm somehow?"

"Well . . .I don't think it's possible to get back to the Enchanted Forest, unless it's with another curse like the first one. And I don't think that's a good thing. So that option is null and void. Would you like to come back to Storybrooke with me?"

"To visit, sure. But to stay . . .Papa, my life is here. I don't know if I could just . . .pack up and move like that. And Rhiannon's got friends here and everything."

"You're right. I . . .wasn't thinking."

"But what about you coming here, Papa? Belle said you were a pawnbroker and an antique dealer over there. You could do that in Manhattan. Hell, the clientele would be better."

"True. Though much of what's in my shop isn't antiques. I would either have to get those whom it belonged to either to buy it back or to keep it in a special room under lock and key." He gazed at his son keenly. "Would _you_ want me here, Bae?"

"Papa, it's like Rhiannon said. You're family. And families belong together."

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to become a burden or an obligation to you." Gold pressed, even though his heart thrilled to hear those words. He had to be certain.

"You're not an obligation, Grandpa," Rhiannon said, coming to sit beside his bed. "Dad wants you to stay here 'cause this is our home. And you belong with us. You're a Spinner too." Her voice echoed with certainty.

"Rhiannon's right, Papa. I'd like you to come home . . .if you want to. But I'll understand if you say no." But even as he spoke those words, he found himself praying very hard for Rumple to say yes.

"Belle? What do you think?" Rumple turned to his fiancée.

"Well . . .it's really up to you, Rumple. I can live anywhere. There's always a job to be found at a library or a bookstore for me. And you know that my father and I aren't talking to each other since he tried to have my memories erased. He wants nothing to do with me now that I've accepted your proposal." She said unhappily.

"Why?" Rhiannon frowned.

"Because, sweetie, my papa thinks your grandpa is a wicked beast. And nothing I've said or your grandpa has done is going to convince him otherwise. Ever since I made that deal with you, Rumple, my father has resented me for it. For doing what no "proper" woman should, for making a deal without consulting him, for choosing my own fate. I love him, but it's time he stopped trying to control me and realize that I'm a grown woman and no one decides my fate but me." Belle said firmly. "So it's for the best that we're not in the same town, I think. And if you want to move here to New York, then I will go with you forever, because I still owe you, sweetheart."

"I released you from my contract," her beloved began.

"Nonsense, Rumple! I chose to walk away. So the deal still stands. And nobody breaks deals with you . . .dearie," she giggled at him, her eyes dancing.

"No, they don't." Rumple agreed, his own eyes twinkling.

"But Rumple, what about your magic?" Belle recalled.

"Well . . .I'm not sure if I have any. But if I do . . .it's not like it was before."

"You do," his granddaughter said softly. "I know. I Dreamed you were standing in a shop filled with all kinds of rare things . . .and some of them were magical. And you said to me, "That's the trick, dearie. To match the object to the person who needs it."

"Maybe we were in Storybrooke?" Rumple suggested.

"No. We were here. Cause I could see the Empire State Building through the window," Rhiannon disagreed.

"And how many times have you Dreamed this?"

"Just once. Last night. But I'll tell you if I Dream it again," she promised.

"All right." He sighed and said, "You know . . . I wish I had a hamburger. With cheese, bacon, and pickles."

Belle looked hungry at that statement. "I do too. Bae, is there somewhere we can get hamburgers?"

"Sure. There's plenty of places," he chuckled. "Papa, are you sure you ought to eat that?"

"Yes. Since I don't have any kind of heart disease, I can eat whatever I want." Rumple said firmly.

"Okay, why don't Belle and I go and get some lunch and bring you back a burger," his son suggested. "Rhee, you want to come with or stay here?"

Rhiannon considered, then said, "I'll stay here. I don't want Grandpa to be bored out of his mind."

"Maybe we could stop back at the apartment and I'll get your books, Rumple?" Belle offered.

"That would be good, dearie." He agreed as they left the room. Then he picked up his remote, and said to Rhiannon, "Let's see what's on this TV. Maybe something interesting is on."

He flipped through the channels until he found The Price Is Right. He watched the show at the shop sometimes scratching his head at the contestants when they were bidding to play one of the games or trying to guess the price of an object. Belle was amused one afternoon when she could hear him yelling when she approached the shop and walked in to discover him arguing with the TV set.

"Rumple? I thought one of the customers was bothering you! Why are you yelling at the TV set?"

"You have NO idea how stupid some of these people are!" he exclaimed. "They don't know the value of anything. No common sense!"

She shook her head. "Do you think they'll hear you in there?"

He looked slightly embarrassed. "No, I suppose not. But it makes me feel better. Like when you yell at the Jeopardy contestants, dearie." He smirked.

"Well some of them look they've used damned Cliff Notes instead of reading the books…or got their information off the internet!" she huffed.

"Knowing today's students, they probably do," he giggled. "I mean, they don't even teach proper research methods with the library in schools anymore."

"If you set foot in MY library you'd better be prepared to do proper research or else!"

"Indeed. And if you come into my shop, you'd better know the value of a dollar and what your merchandise is worth . . .and not try and cheat me by claiming it's worth more than it is."

She laughed. "We're quite a pair, aren't we?"

"The best. And we improve with age," he said suavely.

"...Some of the people on here make really stupid bids," Rhiannon was saying. "A dollar? Really?"

Now as he watched the game show with his granddaughter, he noted that several of the contestants seemed to not know exactly what to bid on a simple household object-which was an iron.

"Ten bucks!' Rhiannon piped up

"Fifteen if it's a Black and Decker," Rumple urged. Then he shook his head in disgust. "My God! Five dollars? What are you-an imbecile? Or don't you know what an iron is?"

"She can kiss that Plinko chip bye bye!" Rhiannon was laughing.

"Or her head!" Rumple snorted. "And they wonder why this country is going down the drain."

Now it was time for the showcase showdown. "Hey Grandpa...you ever get the total right?"

"Lots of times, dearie. I know how to figure things in my head." He answered. "How about you?"

"Ummm...when I think about it I can. I always wondered why I was good with math. I'm in the honor society."

"You're a smart kid." Rumple said approvingly. "Always know the value of what you have, or what someone else is offering you. That way they can't pull the wool over your eyes. I taught your papa that when he was bit older than you. And it looks like he hasn't forgotten everything I taught him."

"No but I don't like that he lied to me about you."

When she first started having the dreams, she had a difficult time making sense of them but she had been taught that sometimes the loved ones you lost were searching for you and they could make contact in dreams and visions, if your heart was open enough to see and to listen.

Rumple gently cupped her chin in his hand. "Ah, Rhee, I don't think he wanted to lie to you, but sometimes anger makes you do things you shouldn't. And he was very angry with me, because he thought I had betrayed him. And maybe, at one time, he wished I was dead."

"I guess but I could never do that...not to my dad no matter what. And I'd never do that to you either."

"You remind me a lot of Belle, sweetheart. She always saw the good man I was before I was cursed. Bae saw him too . . until he forgot how to look and then all he saw was the Dark One. My curse was very frightening to him and unlike you, he didn't have the intuition to See beyond it."

"We have curses too but they're not like that one...yours affects the soul more than the body, at least that's how I Saw it. In my visions I could hear you pleading to be set free but the monster refused to let go. It was feeding from your life force."

Gold nodded. "Yes. It was. It was slowly killing me . . .and in order to stop it I had to make deals with people, manipulate them . . .so the monster had something else to focus on . . . How long were you having visions about me?"

"Once a week." She reached for his hands. "Let me show you..."

"Show me how, dearie?" he asked, clasping hers.

"You have the Gift...we can link with each other since we are blood related."

One of her gifts as a Seer was that she could share her visions with another if they too possessed the Gift but the magic was much stronger between those related by blood.

"Was this something your mama taught you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Sometimes she visits me in dreams. And Dad too."

In her visions of her father, she Saw him as he was when he first came to her world, heartbroken and lonely.

Her last vision of her mother had been prior to her visions of Rumple. In it her mother had a task for her.

"A vital part of your father's heart is lost. You must help him find it, Rhiannon," she advised. "You must be the guide, in ancient times swans were the birds associated with love, hope, and fidelity. Help you father find the part of his heart that is missing."

At first she didn't understand what her mother was referring to but now she understood. He needed his father.

"You were the part of his heart that was lost, Grandpa. And now that he's found you again, he can be whole. We all can be. Because home is where your heart is. And he's always missed his home. Until now."

"I haven't been whole either, Rhiannon. Until I came here and met you and found Bae again. Because my happy ending is having my family together again."

"And Belle?"

"Yes, she is part of that. But it's having all the parts together that helped break my curse and restore me."

"Will you teach me your magic when you get better?"

She was curious about this half of her magical heritage and eager to learn more about it if her grandfather was willing and in doing so, she would come to know him too.

"Yes, as long as my magic still functions. I have a feeling it will . . .but not the way it did when I was cursed. There are different rules here in this world . . .but once I learn what they are, I can teach you what I know. But blood and love are the strongest magic of all."

She smiled. "Here is was what I have Seen with you...maybe that will help explain what you are now." Her voice changed slightly. "The man once known as the Dealmaker...will now be a messenger of hope for those who no longer believe in it..." she murmured.

He put a hand to his heart. "Me? That's what you See?"

"Three times seen, three times truth," she recited.

He believed her. For he too had once been a Seer, and he knew well the Seer's maxim. Visions often came in three parts, hence the saying. It was sometimes known as the threefold art, because a Seer could see three possibilities-past, present, and future.

And when a possibility had the greatest chance of occurrence, the Seer would see repeated visions of it.

Which was not to say it was an absolute for the future was always shifting and changing based upon the actions and choices of a moment. But the more likely the possibility, the more visions it appeared in.

"Finding my father, making a fresh start...it's what you wanted. And now you can."

"Yes, dearie. Now I can finally come home," he agreed, then he embraced her. Even though he had known her a bare handful of days, she was very precious to him, the living legacy of his son, his blood, and the swan heritage of her mother, child of the sky and the earth, true love made flesh.

Belle stood in the doorway of the hospital room wiping tears from her eyes at the beautiful sight before her. The man she loved was free at last.

Bae nearly couldn't see for the tears that blurred his vision also. But he managed to snap a picture on his Iphone anyway. This was the papa he remembered from his childhood. The good spinner who had taught him the most important lesson he would ever learn-how to love and to be loved.

"I love you, Grandpa," Rhiannon whispered.

"I love you too, my wild swan," he murmured, and then he kissed her forehead in loving benediction.

There were still a few loose ends to tie up, but the Dealmaker and the spinner of straw into gold knew one thing irrevocably for truth-Rumplestiltskin Gold had come home at last.

** A/N: I would like to thank my friend and co-author CJ Moliere for helping me with the final scenes of this chapter. The next and last one will show what happenes when they return to Storybrooke and afterwards**


	4. Sometimes the Best Teacups Are Chipped

**4**

**Sometimes the Best Teacups Are Chipped**

Once Rumple was released from the hospital, after giving Lieutenant Gibbs a statement about his attack and signing an affidavit attesting to the truthfulness of his account, he paid for two one-way tickets to Boston for his son and granddaughter, as they wanted to see Storybrooke and help him move his antiques and other valuables. While they were doing that, Bae and Rhiannon would stay with the Golds in his Victorian. Once he had all his antiques shipped down to New York he would start to open up shop again. He had found a shop to rent near Greenwich Village and Bae assured him all the artsy folks would patronize it, especially once he told them whose shop it was.

As soon as everything was packed, they would all drive down in the Cadillac.

Rhiannon was so excited she almost wished the plane could fly faster so they could reach Stoyrbrooke instantly. But she also enjoyed looking out the window and talking with Belle and Rumple about the town and what could be done there.

She played a hand of rummy with Belle, and her grandfather indulgently switched seats so the two could be next to each other, sitting next to Bae and saying, "That wild swan gets any more excited and she's gonna gyrate herself right through the floor."

"I know," Bae laughed at his child's enthusiasm. "She's never been on a plane before, that she can recall, and anywhere in the US since we came to Manhattan."

"Well, she should be fine in Storybrooke for the two weeks we're there," Gold said. "She can make friends with Henry Mills, and Grace Hatter, and the Zimmer twins Ava and Nick. It'll be like a vacation for her, in a way."

"For me too," Bae agreed, having taken some of his paid vacation to go on this trip, and also doing the same for Rhiannon with school.

He leaned back in his seat and read the paper, taking sips of his Dr. Pepper as he did so.

Rumple followed suit, reading his book on Rob Roy and drinking his ginger ale. He found he got slightly queasy when flying and so needed the ginger ale to settle his stomach. They had gotten Cinnabons for the flight, and Rhiannon shared hers with Belle while they played rummy and drank their hot cocoas.

Rhiannon thought riding in Gold's Brougham d'Elegance was awesome, since Bae didn't have a car in Manhattan, because public transportation was easier and cheaper in the city. "Grandpa, you have the most awesome car!" she gushed. "It's like the Godfather car."

Bae cracked up. "Oh my God!"

Rumple smirked. "I suppose I should take that as a compliment." He winked at Belle. "Right, babydoll?"

"Of course, Don Rumple," Belle returned.

They all laughed and had fun listening to the Beatles, Hall &amp; Oates, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Styx, and other oldies but goodies on the drive back to Storybrooke.

Bae was impressed with Gold's salmon-pink Victorian, saying it reminded him of a Fabrege rose egg. Rhiannon declared it was the color of true love and hearts on fire. "It's too bad we can't just move the house to New York," she sighed.

Gold chuckled. "There's quite a few memories in this house, dearie. But many of them are lonely. Since for most of my years here, I was under the Dark Curse and alone, not remembering who I really was or anything I was here to do."

His granddaughter went and hugged him. "Well, you're not alone anymore. We're here now, right, Dad?"

"That's right, swanmay. Now why don't you unpack?" Bae suggested.

Rhiannon skipped up the stairs with her suitcase.

"Let me show you around," Rumple said, and then began giving his son the grand tour, while Belle made iced tea in the kitchen and some snacks.

Gold removed his memory shawl and Bae spoke up about it for the first time since he'd noticed it around his papa's neck. "Papa, that looks like . . .my shawl from back in our old world."

"It is. I kept it all these years and then I used it as my memory talisman when I had to cross the town line," Gold explained.

"Memory talisman?" Bae asked, puzzled.

"Yes." He explained what had happened when Regina cast the Dark Curse, and then also how once they crossed the line, the residents of Storybrooke forgot everything they remembered when the curse broke, and only recalled their Storybrooke personas. "So I made a memory potion, but it had to be placed upon an object and I chose your shawl for mine, and a locket for Belle's."

"But . . .when you were in the hospital . . .you didn't have the shawl on," Bae protested. "And yet you knew who you were."

Gold nodded. "I've been thinking about that. And what I've figured is that when Rhiannon, Belle, and you kissed me and broke my dagger curse, you also broke the memory curse as well. Otherwise I wouldn't have known any of you when I woke up." He stroked the shawl. "I don't need this any longer, but I'd like to keep it all the same. Unless you want it?"

"No, Papa. You've had it all those years," Bae refused gently. He was extremely touched that his papa had saved that boyhood item for all those centuries. It really proved to him that his papa had truly loved and wanted him, never intending to abandon him at the portal. Then he asked softly, "Where's the dagger, Papa?"

"Somewhere only Belle and I know of," Rumple replied mysteriously. "I'll check and see if it's still there later."

He wondered if it was actually there or if something had happened to it when his curse broke. But right then all he wanted was to spend time with his family.

They opted to cook dinner at home, and Rumple made hamburgers on his grill in the backyard, while Belle and Rhiannon made fries with rosemary and spices, baked beans, and Bae made salad.

Then they had triple chocolate sundaes for dessert.

After they had cleaned up, Rumple took them all for a short nature walk in the woods behind his house. As he walked, he took a slender wooden spindle from his pocket. At a certain spot some fifty yards in, where an old gnarled black oak was, he stopped and pricked his finger with it. Then he pricked Belle's finger.

Together they held their fingers over the oak tree and as their blood comingled upon the tree, a hole opened, and Rumple said, "It's in here." Then he reached in to take the dagger from the hiding spot . . .and found only the leather wrapped hilt.

"Papa!" gasped Bae.

"Rumple, it's—_gone_!" Belle cried in astonishment.

"Where did it go?" asked Rhiannon.

"Back to the void that spawned it," Rumple replied. Then, even as he held the dagger's hilt in his hand, it crumbled to dust. "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes."

"Now there are no more Dark Ones," Bae pronounced.

"Not in the sense you mean," Rumple agreed. "But there will always be darkness and those who embrace it and their adversaries who fight it. And while there might be no cursed wizard named the Dark One, the power I released when my curse broke will always seek a new master. It's the Way of Magic. Everything in Balance, dearie."

Then he dusted his hands off and the tree trunk resealed itself and they continued on their walk. Gold told them of the cabin he had here, and said they could spend the weekend at it later.

"What kinds of animals live here?" asked Rhiannon curiously.

"Deer and foxes," Rumple replied.

"Songbirds, squirrels, rabbits," Belle answered.

"I've seen a wild cat once," Rumple recalled. "Raccoons too. And opossums."

"I saw a skunk walking behind the library," Belle recalled.

"Are there bears?" the girl wondered.

"Not that either of us have seen," the librarian said. "But it's always possible. Black bears and grizzlies were once common around here."

"Have you ever seen a swan?" Bae asked.

Rumple shook his head. "No. But I've seen ducks and geese."

"Like the goose that laid the golden egg!" Rhiannon exclaimed. "Or the ugly duckling!"

Gold smiled. "Well, if I ever saw a goose laying golden eggs, you can be sure I'd catch it. But the only gold I've seen is from my wheel, when I spin."

"Can you show me?" the young swanmay asked eagerly.

"Yes, dearie. In my shop, tomorrow, all right? After we start packing up some of my antiques and I contact a few people," he promised. He was rapidly discovering he could refuse his granddaughter very little . . .much as he had her father at the same age. But then again, Rhiannon and Bae did not ask for much, simply to learn what he could do.

And for the first time in a long long time, Rumplestiltskin was not worried about anything except how to transport his antiques without breaking them and liquidating his assets.

When he paused again, he found Belle at his elbow, and suddenly she was in his arms and kissing him, one searing passionate fiery kiss that celebrated the fact that his curse was broken forever and he had the rest of his life to live as he chose.

As he kissed her back with equal fervor, quite forgetting in the heat of the moment that he had an audience, Bae came and covered his daughter's eyes. "You didn't see that," he ordered.

"Dad! M'not blind!" she protested.

"Okay, then _pretend _you didn't see that," he amended.

She tried to squirm out of his embrace. "It's just a kiss! Chill!"

"Never you mind," he said gruffly. "Papa, my God!"

Abruptly the two recalled where they were . . .and whom they were with. Flushing, Rumple drew away from Belle. "Uh . . .err . . . we sort of . . .were celebrating early . . ."

Rhiannon giggled. Bae rolled his eyes.

"We're sorry we embarrassed you," Belle began apologetically.

"You embarrassed Dad," Rhiannon piped up. "Not me. I've seen Marilyn Hotchkiss's Ballroom Dancing and Charm School." Then she realized something. "Hey, Grandpa, ya know the actor who plays Frank looks almost like you."

"He does?" Rumple raised an eyebrow. "Well, they say that we all have a twin somewhere, dearie."

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

The next day, the whole family was at Gold's shop, helping Rumple box up his valuable pieces and hanging a sign in the window that said _Going Out of Business! Please Come and Buy Back Your Items or Make Deals For Them Or Else They Shall Be Counted As Inventory!_

About twenty minutes after Bae had brought back some bagel sandwiches for them all to eat, along with coffee and chocolate milk for Rhiannon, while Gold was carefully packaging a Ming vase for shipment, Regina stalked into the shop, making the bell over the door jangle.

"Gold, what the hell is going on?" she demanded. "What's that sign in the window for?"

Belle looked up from wrapping bubble wrap around a Venetian glass unicorn. "Why Regina? You forgot how to read?"

"Shut up, bookworm! I'm talking to Gold, not the hired help!" Regina said snarkily.

Gold straightened from putting the vase into a Styrofoam lined box. "Belle is not my servant, she's my fiancée!" he growled. "As for what I'm doing, what's it look like, dearie? I'm moving!"

"Moving?" she repeated. "Where?"

"To a new location. Called Manhattan." He responded, removing a painting from the wall.

Regina stomped up to him. "Okay, you've had your little joke. No one's laughing, Rumple. Now quit this baloney and put the stuff back."

He eyed her like he would have an unruly child who had broken out of the nursery. "It's not a joke. I'm leaving . . .in another week and a half or so, if everything is shipped out on time."

She planted her hands on her hips. "You're not serious!"

"Afraid so." He began putting heavy strips of plastic batting about the painting.

"You can't leave, are you crazy?" she snapped. "My _mother_ is coming here!"

Rumple looked unfazed. "And that concerns me how?"

"My mother is coming and you're not going anywhere until you help me, Gold!" Regina scowled warningly.

"I have helped you enough, dearie!" he snapped. "Now I'm done."

"Regina, he's not your pet watchdog . . .or your subject!" Belle declared hotly.

"Who asked _you_, Miss Reading Rainbow?"

"Hey! I don't know who you think you are, lady, but don't talk to my papa that way," Bae growled frostily, coming up from the basement with another bunch of boxes and packing materials.

Regina spun on him. "Who are you? The moving company? Well, you can just go on your merry way, Jose!"

"You're a riot," Bae sneered, putting the boxes down. "You should do stand up—somewhere far away from here. My name is Baelfire Spinner, and I'm _his_ son."

"Dad, I've got the perfume bottles all packed—" Rhiannon came in holding a dustrag.

"So, you're the one he broke that deal with all those years ago? How touching! The Addams Family reunion!" Regina said sarcastically.

"Dad, who's this rude witch?" Rhiannon demanded angrily.

"She's Mayor Mills," Belle answered tightly. "Otherwise known as the Evil Queen back in our realm. Here she acts like Hitler's daughter."

"Who elected her—the ditz brigade? Or maybe she bought some votes?" Rhiannon sneered.

Belle almost spit her drink out all over the floor at that pointed sally.

"Listen, you little brat—you'd better find your manners quick or else!" Regina threatened.

Gold's eyes glinted in warning. "Don't even go there, Regina. That's my granddaughter."

"You think I'm afraid of you, you twisted little imp?"

"Aren't you?" he returned, glaring.

Bae came to stand next to Rumple. "Back off, bitch. Before I remove that broomstick up your ass and teach you how to fly with it."

"I'd like to see you try! You're probably a coward like your father!" She laughed, and twitched her hand.

A fireball appeared in it.

"You're not going anywhere, Rumplestiltskin. Or else you're going to have to change that sign to **Fire Sale."**

That was a mistake.

"Oh, pipe down Poison Ivy!" Rhiannon ordered. "Your cauldron's bubbling over, Lady MacBeth. Better go watch it." She gestured and the fireball in the other witch's hand went out like a snuffed candle.

Regina's jaw dropped. "W-what?"

"Nobody threatens my dad or my grandpa," Rhiannon said flatly. "Especially not third-rate cousins of Lucretia Borgia." Her hands glittered with white fire. "You're the type of whiny witch that give all of us a bad name. My grandpa asked you nicely to leave. So leave! Before the evil that you do comes back and bites you times three!"

A pulsing white line appeared on the floor.

"Cross that line and you're gonna find out what it's like to become a Staypuff Marshmallow queen."

"Kid, you have _no_ idea what you're dealing with," Regina said, all the while feeling her connection to the magic suddenly cut off.

"Yeah, I do. A first-rate bully who thinks she's hot stuff but when she looks in the mirror sees a pathetic poser that caused her own misery and then blames others for her own misfortune. And now that your mistakes have come back to haunt you, you think you're entitled to make other people suffer right along with you. Newsflash—you're not, nobody cares, now get a life and deal with it!"

"How dare you?"

"How dare you take away everyone's happiness just because your mother was Mommy Dearest?"

"My mother murdered the man I loved!" Regina hissed.

"Yeah well _my_ mother was _murdered!_" Rhiannon spat back. "And you don't see me wrecking people's lives over it. Cry me a river! You want help with your hag from hell? Go call Ghostbusters! But leave my family out of this. Cause if you don't—_your revenge will be your undoing!_" she said in an eerie tone. _"And you shall be fairest of all only in death!"_

Her tone sent shivers of ice down the spines of those who heard it and threw Regina into a tizzy. "What are you? Some kind of Seer?" she sputtered, backing away.

"_I am the White Prophet of Lir. Heed my warning . . .or suffer the fate of all who walk the dark path."_

The mayor went white. Then she turned without a word and bolted out of the shop.

The glowing line on the floor went out and so did the white light about Rhiannon's hands.

Bae stared at his little girl. "You just sent the Evil Queen running away like a whipped puppy. And how did you know all those things about her?"

"Dad, I'm a Seer," the child answered.

"Oh. Right. And what about that other stuff? With the line in the sand and all?"

"I reenacted the Alamo," she replied saucily. "The rest was all smoke and mirrors. Well, except for the last part. That was real."

"But you snuffed out her fireball."

"Air smothers fire." Rhiannon shrugged. "When faced with an enemy with superior fire power—you only have three options—run, die, or lie your butt off. I wasn't gonna do the first two, so . . ."

"You mean that was all a bluff?" Belle queried.

Rhiannon smirked. "Guess the mayor's not the brightest crayon in the box, now is she? I'm only nine, remember?"

Rumple roared with laughter. "That's my granddaughter. Pure gold." Then he reached out and hugged her.

**Page~*~*~*~*~Break**

Bae was kept busy for several days packing up all his father's antiques along with Rumple, while Rhiannon helped Belle pack up several things she wished to take from the house and her apartment and some books from the library. Belle had interviewed several prospective librarians, not wanting the library to be forced to close once she left Storybrooke. She finally chose Sheherazade as her replacement, since the desert born storyteller was as avid about books as Belle was.

During that time, several people came into the shop to either buy back the items they had pawned originally or to purchase ones they had been eyeing up. By now everyone knew Rumple's curse had been broken, and Bae noted that since then, some of the residents had been rather rude to Mr. Gold. A few tried to cheat him, but Gold was as sharp as ever, and more than a few called him coward and asked if he had found his courage yet.

Bae had been very tempted to help them out the door with the toe of his boot. Very tempted.

But his papa just ignored the rude people, saying the sooner they left his shop, the sooner he could get back to packing.

There were many old magical objects and those Gold packed himself in special containers designed to hold magical items. Those would not be going with the moving company. They would be coming in the Cadillac. The pawnbroker found that he still retained some of his magic, enough so he could cast charms to ensure that all his breakables remained intact during the move.

He had given the dolls of Geppetto's parents to Archie, saying that perhaps Blue could finally use her so-called wonderful good magic and restore them. In any case he didn't want to take the puppets to New York with him.

Many people had not bothered to pick up their items, and Gold had a list in the back room of who the items belonged to and had Bae call them and remind them about them, so they couldn't say they forgot or no one had informed them to come and get them.

While he was on the phone with one of the more cantankerous cutomers, Maurice French came into the shop. Gold was packing the Red Shoes in some silk, since that was the only thing that would prevent them from magically adhering to someone's feet and making them dance to death. He had just finished tying them up and putting them in one of his magical bags of holding when the florist stalked through the door.

He leaned on the counter and said coldly, "So it's true. You really are leaving."

The pawnbroker looked up. "Yes. I am. Is there something you wished to purchase from me?"

Maurice scowled at him. "No. I wouldn't patronize your shop if it were the last place on earth! I want to know how dare you think you're leaving with my daughter?"

"How dare I? Last I checked, Belle was a grown woman who could make up her own mind where she lives."

"You've ensorcelled her, Dark One!" Maurice bellowed. "She only agreed to marry you because of that deal you made . . .she wouldn't even leave you when I told her what you did to me when we were cursed!" he raged.

Gold's eyes were hard as amber. "What I did to you was no more than you deserved for selling out your own kin to the Evil Queen! And I thought she was dead because of you. Belle makes her own decisions, she always has. She agreed to marry me because she loves me."

"Who could ever love a beast?" sneered the florist.

"Excuse me? Did you just call my father a beast?" Bae demanded as he strode out of the back room.

"What's it to you?" Moe said belligerently.

Bae leaned on the counter, glaring at the other man. "Listen, buddy. I'm tired of all you hypocritical bigots coming in here and thinking that because my papa isn't the all powerful Dark One any longer that means you can treat him like dirt. I've noticed something in the short time I've been here—all of you were under a curse for 28 years and you all were made to do and be and act out things that you probably never would have done otherwise. And when you had the curse break, you all attempted to reconcile with each other and claimed that what you did cursed was done and over with. Yet my papa was cursed too—cursed twice—yet somehow you refuse to look beyond his curse and give him the same courtesy."

"The Dark One doesn't deserve it!"

"The Dark One doesn't exist, asshole!" Bae spat, losing his temper. "That's Mr. Gold, not the Dark One anymore! And who are you to sit in judgment on him, you hypocrite? You God Almighty now? Huh?"

Moe gave ground, then rallied with, "He made a deal with my daughter and coerced her into being his servant and his—"

"Don't even go there, dearie!" Gold interjected. "I've never coerced Belle or assaulted her in my life!"

"Yeah, quit making up lies because you can't handle the truth, Mr. French!" Bae snapped. "The way I heard it is that you and your people were being destroyed by the ogres, and Belle called upon my papa to help you out. You offered gold, but gold wasn't a sufficient price so he asked for Belle . . .and she agreed to go with him forever. Agreed . . .she wasn't forced. She even told me that part of the reason she did so was so she could be like a hero in a story. To save her people."

The door opened and Belle walked in, her hair a bit windblown, in her red coat, wearing her gray skirt and jacket beneath it. She was just in time to hear Maurice say, "I forbid her to make that deal and she defied me. Therefore it's not legal!"

"No one decides my fate but ME, Papa!"

"Belle, you cannot go with him!" Maurice thundered. "He has some kind of foul hold upon you. I know his kind."

"You know nothing about him … or me! You only see what you want to and ignore the truth. He loves me, Papa and he has always treated me like the lady I wanted to be."

She glared at him. "What do you think my life would've been like had I married Gaston? Shall I tell you? I would have been nothing but an ornament on his arm and a baby farm. That's all he wanted from me, what every man you put before me wanted."

"Gaston at least was a noble," Maurice blustered. He pointed at Rumple. "What's he but some poor cowardly village spinner? hardly the kind of man a father wants for his daughter."

"You got something against poor people? Man, you are an arrogant asshole!" Bae growled.

"If you cared about me at all, you would have listened to me and respected my decision and had the fates put me in Rumple's path when he was a poor spinner, I still would have married him for no other reason than love."

She took Rumple's hand in hers. "I'm going, Papa and you can either be happy for me or hold on to your hatred but you will regret it."

"The only thing I regret is not having a son so I could have married you off sooner. Or that Gaston did not succeed in taking you back from him. Or Samuel either. Two men I sent to rescue you and neither returned, what became of them? Tortured to death in his dungeon?"

"No. I don't know what happened to either of them."

"Gaston became a rose, better than he deserved," Rumple answered coldly. "He transformed back after the curse was enacted and after that who knows? As for your tricky mercenary, Samuel, I found out he was conning Belle into taking care of him and planning to try and steal my dagger, so I threw him out of my castle. Maybe he chose not to come back to you because he failed."

Now she remembered. "Rumple...that wasn't all Samuel tried to do..."

She hadn't told him because she was still in shock after it happened but relieved when Rumple tossed the bastard out of the castle.

And the tear in her dress she'd blamed on it getting caught on the statuary while she was dusting.

"What do you mean?" Rumple asked, his heart going suddenly cold at the look on her face.

"That day...when you asked me why my dress was torn...I lied to you..."

"Why?" he asked, though he feared he knew the answer.

"He...he tore it trying to..."

But she'd fought him off with the only weapon she had in her possession at the time, her broom.

Rumple went white with fury. "He dared to hurt you? Put his filthy hands on you?" he sputtered. "I should have turned him into a spider and crushed him!" He fastened a look of utter disgust on Moe. "And that's the kind of man you sent to rescue your daughter? Someone who regards her as nothing more than a plaything for his pleasure!"

"Not only that, but you broke your contract sending him there," Bae pointed out.

"I . . .I didn't think . . .Belle, he was your friend . . .he told me he wanted to . . marry you . . ." Moe stammered.

"Marry me? Marry me?" She laughed harshly. "No, Papa, what he said to me that day was that he was going to make me the biggest whore in Avonlea."

"Did you give your consent then?" Rumple demanded harshly. "Is that why he felt free to handle her? Because he felt that he owned her? Because that's how all of you gentry usually treated your women. Like chattel to be bought and sold and made alliance marriages with."

"I wanted a man who would treat me as his equal and that is the kind of man Rumple has been to me."

"Despite my curse, I have never violated any woman. I have done many wrong things, but never that," Rumple insisted. "I have also never harmed a child. Unlike the mayor, whom you seem perfectly content to have over you."

"Didn't you tell me once Rumple that she said something about killing Emma when she was a baby?' Belle asked.

"Yes, she did. She sent her guards to attack Snow and Charming and to either kill their baby or to bring the baby to her. Charming fell after he put Emma into the wardrobe."

"Now tell me who is the true beast, Papa?"

Maurice looked slightly shocked. "I knew she had done awful things, but her boy . . .he vouched for her and I thought maybe the rumors were exaggerated."

"They weren't," Belle said firmly. "And the rumors that she kept me locked up...in both worlds were all true too if you recall."

Maurice looked away. "I asked her to protect you . . .you were running all over risking your neck with crazy warrior women and fighting monsters. Why didn't you come home?"

"She wouldn't LET me! She wanted to keep me alive so she could kill me when it suited her."

"Why?"

"To hurt Rumple."

"And because that's how Regina operates," Rumple put in. "She doesn't care about anything but what she wants and what makes her happy. I'm sure you heard her say it often enough. I will destroy your happiness if it's the last thing I do. She was my student, but I didn't teach her how to torture people or to burn villages or murder. I didn't need to. She learned that all on her own, dearie. She's Cora's true daughter that way. And she can claim all she wants that *I* made her walk the dark path, but that's a lie. No one makes you walk the dark path, you choose it . . .even I chose it, though I didn't know what I was doing. And then I was cursed to be the Dark One."

"But you're not the Dark One anymore. We've freed you," Belle reminded him.

"I know," in his voice was all the warmth of summer. "Freed me from a curse that turned me into a beast. That made even my tiniest innocent desires tainted with its dark power. Have you any idea what it feels like to have your will slowly turned against you? Every thought, every wish, corrupted? Like a cancer it spreads through you, and no matter how hard you fight, you cannot overcome it? You drown in the darkness. THAT was what I lived with for over 300 years. And it would have been so easy to surrender myself to it, to le tthe darkness take me. But I didn't. Because I had two people who still loved me-my son and Belle. And now my granddaughter also. My family brought me out of the darkness. And you would throw yours away? Is your pride worth it?"

There was a long silence as Moe glanced around the half-bare shop and thought for the first time about his daughter and the man she would marry, not in terms of himself, or of the past, but of the future. And he found that he didn't look forward to a future where he was alone, a miserable old man puttering in his garden, talking to flowers because he had no one else who cared.

He looked back at Belle.

"You're right. I . . .I was wrong. If you truly love this man-Mr. Gold-then marry him, Belle. Though I will never understand quite why you do."

"Maybe someday you will," his daughter said softly. "Because the best teacups are chipped."

"Someday," the florist agreed. "You will honor and love her then, Rumplestiltskin? I know better than to include "obey" you ," he added with a wry look.

"I will. My word on that. And my word has always been good."

Belle hugged her father. "You don't know what it means to me to have your blessing..."

He hugged her back. "I'm an old cantankerous pigheaded idiot," he admitted. "But even I know better than to fight fate-or a woman when she's made up her mind."

"We'll let you know when we set a date," Rumple said. "It'll be soon . . .and a small ceremony . . .probably outdoors in Central Park or something. I'll send a car to bring you there. Or pay for your airfair whichever you prefer."

"That's expensive," the florist protested.

"Dearie, have you forgotten what my name is?" laughed Rumple. "You do remember what I do?"

"Money's no object to him, Papa. It's all for family."

"All right. Belle knows my number. I'll wait for your call." Then he looked around the shop again. "You know, there was something here that I saw once-a rose pink gown . . . it was my wife's . . ."

"Papa...if I can find it...I want to wear it...as my wedding dress."

"Is this it?" Bae went over to a rack where some clothes were and picked the dress off of it.

Maurice's eyes grew misty. "Yes. That was my Colette's. I always wondered what had become of it."

"Many things that I never made deals for ended up in my shop when the curse was cast," Rumple told him. "I think Regina just used my shop to . . .put things in . . .like a storage space. Things she didn't want people to have and didn't want to be bothered dealing with."

Belle's eyes filled with tears. "I can still see the portrait you had painted of her when she wore this..."

"It's a lovely gown, sweetheart. Very well made," Rumple approved.

"She was so beautiful and I wanted to be like her..."

"You are like her," Maurice acknowledged. "Compassionate and kind and smart. But you get your pigheadedness from me, I'm afraid."

Belle laughed. "You know what they say...you have children who act like you..."

"Oh God!" Bae groaned. "Then I'm in trouble!"

Rumple snickered. "You so are, Bae! And that's a parent's best revenge-that you have kids just like you."

"Somebody shoot me!"

"I take it Bae was a bit naughty as a child?" Belle smirked.

"Papa, please!"

"Oh he had his moments . . .a lot of them," Rumple said slyly. "I could write a book with everything the scamp got up to. He painted a pig on the side of my cottage with my boot black, let my goat get into my vegetable garden and eat up half our winter produce, nearly broke his neck trying to climb a mandragora tree because it looked like a beanstalk . . ."

"Oh my... then our children will...maybe we'd better keep Archie's number handy!"

"Yes. I would say so." He touched his silvering hair. "This is why I have this."

"Papa! You're over three hundred!" Bae protested. "Even sorcerers go gray eventually."

"I had this before I was one!" Rumple shot back.

"Umm . . okay," Bae groaned in defeat. "Speaking of children-where's Rhiannon?"

"She's down at the park with Henry. He came into the library and they seemed to be having a good time, so I let them go to the park," Belle answered.

Page~*~*~*~Break

Down at the park, Henry and Rhiannon were up in Henry's castle, which Regina had rebuilt for him after the storm had wrecked it a few months ago. Rhiannon was sitting with her legs dangling over the side. "So, do you come here a lot? I used to have a special tree that I sat under in Central Park near the duck pond where I went to be alone and to think." Usually about things she had Dreamed or Seen.

"Yeah, just when I need some time to myself. I don't have many friends."

The girl looked at him curiously. "I don't either. Because they think I'm weird." She indicated her hair and her eyes. "And they don't even know what I can really do." Then she shrugged. "But Dad always tells me it's not how many friends you have but who you're friends with that counts."

"My mom made everyone think I was crazy when I said they were all fairytale character s...had me see Archie for it too."

"So now kids think you're crazy?" she asked sympathetically.

"Not anymore but before, yes."

And some of them teased him for not having a father, even making snide comments about how his father could be a former jailbird like his birth mother.

"So you have two moms, but no dad. Sort of like me. I have a dad and a grandpa but no mom." Rhiannon mused.

"I asked about him but Mom...Emma says he's dead."

"She never told you who he was? Not even his name?" Rhiannon queried.

"No, she just said he was a fireman...and that he died."

"A mystery!" Rhiannon cried. "I'm good at solving mysteries. Are those all the clues you have? There's no . . .birth certificate or something?"

"Mine says father unknown."

She frowned. "And your mom would be the only one who does know . .and she's not saying." The girl cupped her chin in her hand. "Umm . . .I could try-cause I'm not real good yet-to See for you in water. Maybe I could See his face or something."

"Would you? Uh, are you allowed to use magic?"

"Yes. I'm only not supposed to where ordinary people can see," she replied. Then she jumped down from the castle. "Do you have a pond somewhere? It works best where the water is natural."

"Umm...the well...a wishing well."

"Okay, let's go there."

She followed Henry and they arrived at the wishing well in the middle of the woods. Rhiannon breathed deeply of the scent of the woods and the familiar tang of magic emanated from the well. It's magic was fresh and pure, like a river running over rocks, pristine and untouched. "This place . . .it has great magic."

"This was where Rumple brought back magic to Storybrooke."

She cocked her head. "Brought it back? But magic was always here."

"It was?"

"Yes. My mama's family all have it. And they come from Scotland . . .but maybe it just made it stronger here," she mused and set her hand on the lip of the well. The other she took Henry's. "Okay. Just stare into the water with me. I'm going to try and penetrate the Veil Between Worlds . . .and See what I can."

He stared into the water intently. Slowly ripples began to form and the water frothed and bubbled.

Rhiannon passed her hand over the water and ordered sharply, "Be still!" The water obeyed, and her eyes glowed with a silvery light. "Now Show me what I request . .show me who Henry Mill's dad is. Who is he? Part the Mists and reveal it to me."

The water flared a brilliant silver and Henry nearly turned his head away. An instant later he saw Emma in the water, but a much younger version than she was now. She wore glasses and a striped shirt. She was walking into a store, looking heavily pregnant, with a man in a black leather jacket, sort of scruffy, dark haired with blue eyes.

Henry's jaw dropped. "That's my dad?"

The scene changed, and showed them together in Emma's yellow Bug, driving somewhere. Then the man leaned over and kissed Emma.

Then the water rippled and went still. "Sorry. I couldn't hold it," Rhiannon apologized. "Did you recognize him?"

Henry nodded slowly. "Yeah. I did. My dad—is August Booth! He's a writer . . .and he's here in Storybrooke."

"That's great! Now you can meet him."

"Yeah . . .as long as I can get him to believe I'm his son. He didn't seem to recognize me. Maybe he doesn't know about me?"

"Could be. Maybe you'd better find him before that crazy witch comes to town. The mayor's mother."

"Her name's Cora. And she was the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland," Henry said softly. "My mom banished her there. But now she's gotten out and she's coming here. Maybe she already is here." He looked worried. His hand tightened on his backpack. "Hey. You're gonna be leaving here soon, right?"

"Uh huh. We're going back to Manhattan as soon as Grandpa has all his things from his shop shipped and stuff. Why?"

"Because . . .then maybe you should have this," he unzipped his backpack and pulled out the fairy tale book. "This is a book that's . . umm . . a magically recorded history of all the people here in Storybrooke. You know how you thought you knew all the stories about Snow White, Cinderella, and the Evil Queen? Well, these are their REAL stories. And look—even your dad and grandpa are in it."

She flipped through the Once Upon a Time book. "Are you sure you want me to have this, Henry? It looks like an antique . . .very old. And it has magic of its own. Magic that preserves it and hides it."

"Hides it how?"

"From people who don't believe," she answered. "Either they can't see it at all, or they can only see an old book of fairytales. Don't you know about Glamour spells?"

"No. You know more than I do about magic," he admitted. "I only know what I believe in."

"And belief is magic," she answered quietly.

"Well, I want you to have this cause if Cora is coming here . . .I have the feeling she might do something to the book . . .something bad. So it's safer with you, in Manhattan. In Mr. Gold's new shop."

He felt a pang as she took the Once Upon a Time book from him. "Okay. I'll keep it safe." She promised. She knew how she could protect the book, though mainly it could protect itself.

"Hey, you wanna get some ice cream?" Henry suggested.

"Sure!" Rhiannon said, then they left the wishing well, Rhiannon with the fairy tale book now in her messenger bag.

About fifteen minutes later, the bell over Gold's door jingled and Rhiannon came in, calling, "Hey, Grandpa, I brought you back a chocolate cone!"

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

Later on that evening, as they were all sitting and having tea in the kitchen, Bae saw the chipped cup Rumple was using, and asked why he was drinking out of damaged crockery. Rumple replied, "This isn't just a cup. It's the most cherished thing I own . . .except for your shawl."

"Why?" asked Rhiannon, staring at it in awe.

"Because I chipped it," Belle told her. "And this cup is . . .well it's a symbol of how our love has survived everything despite all the obstacles in our way. Obstacles that should have quenched our love forever. But they didn't. It's also a symbol that love is not some perfect ideal—it's an imperfect thing and always will be. And that is how it should be."

Bae blinked hard. "That's so true. Sorcha always said that love had no beginning and no end, that it was eternal. And it also was not perfect—that it was as imperfect as those who loved each other—and its very imperfection made it unique and special and beautiful."

"Your Sorcha was a wise woman," Gold said softly. "I wish I could have known her."

"Yeah, me too. You would have loved her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, except for Rhee and you guys," he amended.

"She was smart too," Rhiannon said.

"Yeah. But she wasn't some paragon either. She could be stubborn as hell, and she had a temper. She was also something of a neat freak and OCD. I remember once she tore strips out of me for leaving my paints all over my studio and letting Rhee, who was crawling about then, get into them. But even though her OCD sometimes drove me crazy, as did her—err—obsession with helping wild birds—I loved her despite them."

"And you drove her crazy too, Dad," his daughter pointed out.

"Yeah, I did. But you know, that's how it's supposed to be, swanmay. There's no perfect love story and no perfect marriage, no matter how much you love someone, you'll always have differences and arguments. But that's cause we're all people. Like old Granny Lir used to say—_ye cannae learn t'weather a few storms unless ye get caught in the rain and almost struck by lightning a few times._" Bae quoted. "But the trick is to look at the clouds and see the silver lining and then wait for the rain to pass. You learn to work things out and to deal with the ups and downs because being with your wife is worth it. Or at least it is if you love them."

"Dad, I think you should write a book," his daughter declared. "_Baelfire Spinner's Guide to Marriage."_

"Thanks, kiddo. But I was only married for six years, not sixty."

"What's that matter?" she refuted.

Bae shrugged. "I guess it doesn't."

"Would you ever remarry?" asked Belle softly. "I'm sorry, that sounds rather personal."

"No, that's okay. I used to think about it sometimes, but . . . I know that I'd never find another person like her that could understand me. And . . .swans mate for life."

There was also another little complication. His wife still visited him sometimes in dreams. And in dreams he could be with her again, and hold her and talk to her, and kiss her. It was not just a fabrication of his mind either. His Lir relatives had explained that because of how Sorcha had died, untimely murdered, her soul had not truly left and flown to heaven like it should have. A part of her still lingered inbetween worlds and wished to be with him the only way they could now—in dreams, where the realms of the spirit and the mortal realm touched.

He spread his hands. "I don't need another woman in my life. I have the only one I need," and he hugged his daughter. "Plus, after Sorcha, I'd always be comparing a new girl to her, and that's not fair. I had my happily ever after, and nothing can ever compare to that. Now I just have a different one, with my family."

"And you're not lonely?" she asked.

"No. I have Rhee, you, and my artwork, teaching, and my students. I'm too busy to be lonely." And at night, he had his dreams and his swan maiden. It was not what he had ever expected. But it was what worked for him.

_I've found the missing piece of my heart again. And that's enough._

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

_Later that night:_

Belle had just finished brushing her teeth and slowly combing her hair, getting ready for bed, when she felt eyes upon her. Turning, she encountered Rumple standing there in the hallway, just drinking in the sight of her. "Hey. Was there something you needed?"

"No. I just . . .felt like admiring you," he answered, his voice softening to that sexy burr she loved, that sent quivers down her spine and made her long to throw herself at him and unwrap all his clothes. "It always amazes me that . . .you're still here . . .still with me after everything we've endured. I've never understood why you stayed."

She approached him, and then pulled gently on his arm, till he entered her bedroom. She shut the door with her foot and said, " I stayed . . . at first because I'm a woman of my word and I promised you forever. But then, the more I came to know you—all of you—I stayed because you intrigued me. Even when you drove me crazy. I was coming back you when Regina found me."

"Were you?"

"Yes. Because I was wrong to have ever walked out that day. I wasn't thinking . . .I was angry . . .I was hurt . . .but I found even with the adventure I thought I wanted, it wasn't enough. It didn't fulfill me the way it should. And I missed my home."

"Avonlea?"

"No. _Our _home. The Dark Castle." She corrected. "Because my home was where you were." She slipped her arms around him. "And you know something? It still is."

"I love you, Belle. And I will try to make you happy every day of our marriage."

"Rumple, no," she said, and put a finger to his lips. "I don't want you to make me happy. Because that's not what marriage is about. It's not your responsibility to make me happy. It's mine. All I want is for us to be together. To live together, to love together, to fight together, and to make up together. I know Milah made you think you were no good, that you never pleased her, but that's because she was impossible to please. Nothing you ever did would have been good enough for her. Because what she wanted wasn't you."

"I tried, dearie. I tried very hard to make my marriage work. But . . .all she saw was the coward spinner."

"That's because she didn't know how to look. Or didn't want to," Belle replied, putting her head on his shoulder. "You're not perfect, Rumple. I know that. I'm not either. But then-I've never wanted perfect. When all the other girls dreamed of marrying handsome noble knights and lords, who had arms like tree trunks and legs like pillars and could hunt all day and make love all night, I was in the library dreaming of finding a man who could debate with me, and play chess, and read, and just want _me._ I didn't care what he looked like. That wasn't important. What was important was that he loved me, just me. I was never like the rest of them. And I wanted a man who wasn't like the rest of them either. And I found what I was looking for."

"You found a beast."

"No. I found my heart," she corrected. "Right here." She tilted her head up and their lips grazed each other's. "Perfect is for idealistic young fools and silly immature girls. And I'm neither. I want you, Rumplestiltskin, because true love isn't about finding the perfect person. It's about falling in love with an imperfect person . . .and seeing . . how . . .they are perfect."

Inbetween her words, she began to kiss him, starting with his forehead and working her way down.

"And finally . . .because the best teacups are chipped."

Her mouth was on his, teasing, tempting, and at last giving to him all that she was, showing him without words how much he meant to her.

Her kisses affirmed something he had always doubted in himself—that he was truly worth loving. All of his life, those who should have loved him abandoned him, or told him he was worthless and unworthy of their love. And even with Belle, he had doubted from the start that she could ever love him. After all, no one else ever had. Even his son had run from him. But he had been wrong.

She had stayed the course. And had taught him something that no one else had.

That sometimes the best teacups were chipped, and they were worth more than any whole one, because imperfections were beautiful.

He clasped her to him, his long fingers tangling in her hair, and he kissed her with all of the gentle yet fiery passion of his love-starved heart, and for the first time in all of his life he was truly happy.

**A/N: There are a lot of hidden Easter eggs in this chapter-let's see if you can find them. I hope you all liked my AU version here and how I had certain characters reconcile. Bae's speech on marriage was one that my own parents, married 55 years, have spoken to each of my siblings upon the eve of their marriages. I hope this story has given those who read it hope and happiness, and they take away the message that love is beautiful because of-in spite of-its imperfections. For above all, I feel that Rumbelle has always contained the message of love is hope, even to those who feel or have felt unloved.**

**This is something that I feel the show had totally destroyed with Rumbelle. And please do not use my review forum to debate me on this. I no longer watch the show because I no longer feel like it has anything decent to offer me and have no wish to debate the merits of it on here. I wrote this so I could feel happy and fulfilled again, and offer an alternative to Bae dying and Rumbelle splitting apart. Hopefully, this has also made you happy. **

**There will be a short epilogue and then this will be done.**


	5. Epilogue A Blessing of Swans

**Epilogue: A Blessing of Swans**

Finally everything was packed and ready to go. Henry had given Rhiannon his email and his cell to call him if she wanted to talk to him about the fairy tale book or if something happened in New York with it. She had already resolved to call him when her grandpa got married and he had said he was going to text her about his dad, if he had spoken to August about his parentage and how he took it.

The drive back to Manhattan took several hours, with some occasional stops along the way to use bathrooms and eat something. Gold drove for most of the way, then when his leg started aching, switched with Bae and his son drove. Rhiannon and Belle napped for the first leg of the journey, then woke up when they heard Bae and Rumple arguing about driving.

"Bae, are you sure you can drive? This isn't like the city, you know," Rumple was saying.

"Papa, I'm fine. Trust me, I can drive," Bae assured him. He hadn't had to in several years but that didn't mean he'd forgotten how. He just didn't bother revealing to his father that he had learned to drive after boosting cars and running away from the police. But that had been almost a lifetime ago, he reminded himself. Before he had met Sorcha.

But he hadn't taken into account Rumple's OCD concerning his car. The Caddy was like his other child, and until now only Gold had ever driven it.

"Bae, ease up on the gas," Rumple remonstrated. "You're not in the Indy 500."

"Papa, the speed limit is 55, I'm going 65. Only 10 miles over and that's the safe zone," Bae argued. "These other people are going 70. You want me to drive like some senile old fart here?"

"Just what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm not doing 50 like some snail cruising along. Relax and read your book, for Godsake."

"I do not drive like a snail," Gold muttered, turning back to reading Rob Roy. "I follow the rules of the road."

"Well, then you're probably the only driver in New Jersey who does," muttered Bae as he passed another car.

Gold looked up. "Jesus H. Christ, Baelfire! We almost got mowed down by that semi!"

"No we didn't. You're exaggerating. I was perfectly two car lengths away from it when we moved over. Read! Or take a nap, you're cranky."

Gold goggled at him. "Excuse me? Who do you think you're talking to here, mister?"

"Papa, you're driving me insane!" Bae snapped.

"Don't you take that tone with me!"

"What tone?" Bae replied innocently.

"Don't make me pull this car over," Gold groused.

In the backseat, Belle and Rhiannon were laughing hysterically into their sleeves.

Bae turned his head and gaped at his father. "Oh my God! You've really lost it! Papa, I'm not five!"

"You're acting worse than you did when you were five!" he argued.

"Really? And you've gone off your rocker. How are you gonna pull the car over when _I'm_ driving it, huh?"

Gold crossed his arms over his chest. "Magic." He replied smugly. "So watch the tone, mister."

Bae contemplated hitting his head on the dashboard. Or switching back and letting Gold drive since the old man was bound and determined to give him an ulcer on this trip. _Dammit, we shoulda taken the Auto Train._

"Rumple, why don't you take some deep breaths?" suggested Belle sweetly, trying not to burst out laughing. "Before you give yourself another coronary event?"

Rhiannon was hoping she didn't pee herself, and wishing she had one of the fancy new phones that could record whole conversations. This was funnier than watching reality TV.

"I'm fine, dearie. Just _fine."_ Rumple huffed, glaring out the window.

"Breathe, Rumple. I don't want you to spend another night in the hospital," Belle urged.

Reluctantly, Rumple began to practice his relaxation breathing techniques and tried to focus on a peaceful lake full of swans instead of how terrified he was that Baelfire would wreck his precious d'Elegance.

**Henry, you should be here. This is the only road trip I've ever been on and it's funnier than watching Stupid People on the Road.**

Rhiannon texted her friend, while reading some more of the fairy tale book.

Belle massaged the back of Rumple's neck while sipping a McDonald's sweet tea.

Bae muttered several choice words describing the ancestry of some Jersey drivers that cut him off on the Parkway exit.

**Wow sounds interesting! Wish I was there.** Henry texted back.

_U talk to your dad yet?_

**Nope. But when I do I'll tell u all about it.**

Rhiannon shut her phone then and concentrated on reading about her grandpa saving all the kids in the Frontlands in the First Ogre War.

For awhile things were fine and dandy as they crossed the state line into New York.

Until Bae muttered, "Shoot! I missed the exit for the GW Bridge!"

He snarled something unintelligible in Gaelic, which he had learned from Sorcha, and weaved in and out of traffic to get to the next available exit. Then he slammed on his brakes as a red Miata cut him off. "Learn how to drive, asshole!"

"Baelfire, dammit!" Rumple cried, feeling his blood pressure soar as the other car nearly sideswiped them. "My car! Pull over, I'm driving."

"Like hell, Papa! I've got this."

"You're gonna get us into an accident. Now pull over!"

"Sorry, can't hear you."

Belle began praying the rosary—that they would get to Manhattan without Rumple having a heart attack or Bae killing him.

Rhiannon was writing notes on her sketchpad and wondering if this was normal for families traveling long distances.

Then she dozed off while reading about the Knave of Hearts in Wonderland, and the next thing she knew, Belle was shaking her shoulder and telling her to wake up because they were finally home.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

_Three weeks later:_

Mr. Gold finished polishing the brand new spotless display case in his new store. The glass case ran in a large U-shape around the store, showcasing some of his more valuable pieces of jewelry and small Limoges boxes, antique ballpoint pens, statues, and prettily carved Japanese ivory boxes. In the middle of the store, practically the first thing you saw when you came in, was a mahogany pedestal with a golden card that had Bae's name on it. Atop the pedestal was Bae's marble statue of the swanmay, modeled by his wife, Sorcha. He had finished it the week before Gold's grand opening and had given it to his father to put on display in the store as a curiosity piece. It was not for sale, but the display was meant to catch the eye. Gold also had cards with Bae's name and number on them for people who wished to talk with him or to commission a piece of art.

The sign in the window and above the door read~_Golden Spinner Antiques &amp; Curiosities~ proprietor R. Gold_. Rumple had taken the name Raibeart as his use name in New York, which was the Gaelic Robert, but they had it nosed about that family used a funny nickname, Rumple, as a play on his name Gold and the fact that his family used to be spinners and weavers. Bae still used Spinner for his artist's name, but had applied to change his name and Rhiannon's name legally to Gold.

The shop was actually four rooms, one was the main showroom which anyone could enter and see the antiques and collectibles on display, the small room was the back room office where Rumple did his accounts and so forth, complete with a state of the art computer, hidden wall safe, and mini fridge and a pull out couch in the wall. Then there was a storage room where he had some of his older and less popular pieces stored and also new shipments brought. The fourth room was for his "special" collection, and it was where his magical objects were stored. The room had been warded by him so no one save family could willingly enter it, and then only when they answered a riddle by pushing on a special plate on the door, where a magical voice spoke directly into their heads. No one could be coerced to open the door, either by magical or mundane means, and the spell that guarded the portal would know if the person was being coerced and the door remain locked.

Gold still retained much of his magic, and had used some of it to ward his shop against thieves and hackers and other natural disasters, like bombs and other explosives. He also had cast protective spells upon Bae and Belle and also himself, so no dark practitioner could remove their hearts and control them. They also could not erase their memories or tamper with them magically. Rhiannon, as a swanmay, had an innate magical protection against anyone trying to remove or control her heart and Rumple cast the memory protection on her as well. He then put tracking spells upon each of them, so in case anyone tried to kidnap them, he could always find where they were, even if they were taken from this world into another. In this way he ensured that no one could use his family against him as leverage.

Though he was no longer the Dark One, that did not mean his enemies had vanished, and he was taking no chances with the safety of his family.

The only ones who would ever see the special collection would be those whom Gold or Rhiannon sensed needed some magical object from it, and even then they could not see the entire collection inside the room, just the objects that pertained to their particular need. Only Rumple, Rhiannon, Belle, or Bae could see the entire collection, and of those, the most dangerous objects were only able to be retrieved by Rumple. And all the magic came with a price, depending upon the object and what was intended with it. The price was always spelled out in an unbreakable contract and once signed, nothing save paying the price in full could break it. If the price was not paid, specific consequences were levied. All of this was agreed upon by the purchaser before the signing of the contract. The only stipulation—none of the prices required the lives of the buyer or their families or the lives of children.

Rumple also had a section of the shop set up with his spinning wheel and several spools of all kinds of colored thread, including a gold one, though of course people would think it was fake. It was in a glass case with the words—fairy tale gold—under it. Handwoven blankets and Bae's shawl hung on the walls behind the spinning wheel and were labeled as "handcrafts by R. Gold". A basket of carded wool was beside the wheel and another on a shelf of uncarded wool with carders in it. There was also a sign that said- _Spinning Lessons held every third Saturday of the month, inquire with Mr. Gold for schedule and to sign up, space limited!_

Rhiannon was his first student.

But others soon followed, especially those from the artist community and Cooper U once they found out that the antique dealer was also Prof. Spinner's dad. Many of his students were college girls who wanted to try something new, even if it was a centuries old art form, and had no opportunity here in the big city. A few of them even asked if Gold was Amish when they heard his accent.

"Sorry, dearie, I'm Scottish," he chuckled.

"I don't care what he is," murmured one to her friend. "His accent is so sexy it makes me wanna swoon like they do in all those Jane Austen novels."

"Him and Prof. Spinner make my head spin," replied her friend dreamily.

Rumple felt rather startled at the way the girls spoke about him when they figured he couldn't hear. He had never in his life felt attractive to the opposite sex and it still was a puzzlement what Belle saw in him. Or these girls who though his accent was sexy. He was old enough to be their father!

The first week the shop was open, he found many customers who were willing to buy his antiques to furnish their offices, homes, and give as gifts. He did a more brisk business in the city than he ever had in Storybrooke, when sometimes days would go by when he had hardly any customers even in to make deals with their pawn items. He kept his prices reasonable and the buyers paid cash, money order, or certain major credit cards, and also allowed for payment plans for certain expensive items.

Besides that, he was also busy helping Belle decorate their new home, which was close by the shop, and arrange for a justice of the peace to marry them in Central Park in a small ceremony, with flowers and an archway and a tiny string quartet. He had also arranged for a horse and carriage to take them to the ceremony and from there to the reception hall in Bae's college, where they would have some dinner catered and a cake and a band courtesy of Bae's students who moonlighted at certain occasions like that.

Belle and Rhiannon were in charge of picking out the cake and the food for the reception, which would consist of just the family, including Moe, and a few of Bae's colleagues who had met Gold and Belle and were quite nice and accepting of the couple despite their age difference.

He had just finished dusting the Queen Anne loveseat in the corner with Chppendale table next to it upon which several of Belle's books from the library were displayed, one of them being the fairy tale book, which to a casual observer would look just ordinary, when the little shop bell jingled and a customer walked in.

Gold blinked at the small woman in the pink Gucci pantsuit and matching sandals, her dark hair curled artfully around her ears. She appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, with eyes that had been compared to a gazelle, and full pouty lips, her skin the color of honeyed coffee. She wore several gold bangles on her wrist. He knew her, even dressed as she was in haute couture fashion. "Hello, Scheherazade," he greeted softly, making sure they were alone in the shop.

"Sherry," she corrected softly. "Hello, Mr. Gold."

"What brings you down to Manhattan, dearie? Got tired of managing the library in Storybrooke?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I find it very challenging, though Belle left it in pretty good shape. Still . . . I came down here looking for something I think might have been in your shop inventory. Something I didn't even think about until recently."

"Something a wee bit special?" he queried intently.

"Yes. A storybook I had back in my desert kingdom, Al Zahir." She met his eyes squarely.

"I see. I believe I know the item you're looking for. Come into my special collection area," he invited and went over to the connecting door next to the spinning wheel display and set his hand upon the simple brass plate beside it. He heard a voice in his head whisper, _Hello, Mr. Gold. Riddle me this—what walks on all fours in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?_

He paused briefly and answered. Then the door clicked and he turned the handle and entered, followed by Sherry. The door shut silently behind them.

The mageglobes about the room brightened and she could see several bookshelves with books in leather bindings with silver and gold runes on them—enchanted books and scrolls filled with spells and stories.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction, Rhee?"asked Belle as she tried to keep up with the bouncy nine-year-old in her Keds, lilac jeans, and printed top with the white swan on it. Belle was in one of her dresses with a crocheted skirt and puffed sleeves, colored her favorite blue, but she regretted wearing the matching heels since walking quickly in them was almost impossible in the crowded sidewalks of the city. Belle wasn't used to New York's traffic, or construction, or the everchanging lights and Walk-Don't Walk signs.

Or all of the people. Young, old, different ethnicities, people were everywhere, and she felt like she was in the center of a whirling mass of people, going around and around.

This was nothing at all like sleepy Storybrooke.

The aroma of pizza intermingled with soy sauce from the Chinese restaurant and the slight disgusting tang of overripe garbage from the trashcan nearby. A man smoking a cigarette was standing in a doorway. Further down across the street, someone was blasting a stereo with some rap music. Cars honked. People called greeting or epithets to each other. Dogs barked.

Belle's head pounded. She thought she was used to all the hustle and bustle after being here two weeks, but she discovered that New York could still surprise her—unexpectedly.

She caught up to Rhiannon at the next crosswalk, as the girl pointed to a large white building with a pink awning and in the window was a painted on wedding cake with purple and pink roses and the fancy calligraphy gold lettering that spelled out _Celebrations._

This was the place she had seen advertised on TV that night when she was watching The Big Bang Theory with Rumple. She had written the address down and the phone number, and had called to see if she needed an appointment. They had said no, to just come in and look around.

She felt butterflies in her tummy as she pushed open the door and entered the bakery, which had the most scrumptious smells coming from it.

The air was redolent with vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate. Rhiannon felt her mouth water just smelling it. All kinds of cakes, pies, and pastries were in a long display case and in a huge freezer case were ice cream and homemade ice cream cakes and sandwiches.

Belle just stared in awe, for some of the cakes on display were like works of art in themselves. There was one that looked like a wishing well for a baby shower, another shaped like a lamb for a christening, one like a present for a birthday, and many others. There were also sample pieces of cakes to try, and she and Rhiannon ate them eagerly, finding that the cake tasted as amazing as it looked. Including the frosting, which didn't taste like cardboard the way most fondant icing did.

A tall man with dark hair cut in a neat shoulder length bob, wearing a white apron with the multi-colored word Celebrations on it came out. He had on black trousers and a very neat short sleeved Izod shirt in a light salmon color. He was actually quite handsome, though Belle still thought her fiancé the most handsome man ever.

"Hello, ladies. Welcome to Celebrations. I'm Sebastian Murano, one of the owners. How may I assist you?" His accent was soft with the whisper of Sicily, and his brown eyes bright with anticipation.

Belle gave him a return smile. "Hello. I'm . . .well . . .I'm here to look at wedding cakes."

"She's getting married to my grandpa and we need a cake for the reception in . . uh . . . two weeks," Rhiannon said.

"Well, that sounds like something we can accommodate for you, Miss-?"

"French. But please, call me Belle," Belle said.

"Would you like to see some samples of our previous wedding cakes or do you have something specific in mind?"

"Umm . . .Rhee, shall we look at some first?" suggested Belle.

"Sure. But we do know one thing. We want a swan chocolate fountain in the middle," the girl told the baker.

"Ahh! That sounds _bellissima!_" Sebastian murmured. Then he called over his shoulder. "Chris! Bring the wedding ensemble book out, _caro!_ And the sample cakes!" He turned back to Belle. "We have five kinds of cakes and fillings that are voted most popular by our guests. We keep them in the back upon request."

A smaller man, a little bit broad in the shoulders and around the middle, with slightly longer hair of sandy blond and bright brown eyes, emerged from the back room with a cart with some cake slices on them and a large binder. He looked more ordinary than his partner, while Sebastian reminded one of a classic movie star like Cary Grant or Rock Hudson, Chris was more like the type you could meet somewhere along your street.

"Hi. I'm Chris Lockwood. I do all the artistry for the wedding cakes you see in the book. Pleased to meet you." He smiled and held out a hand to Belle. The smile lit his face, transforming it.

He wore the same apron, but had on gray pants and a purple shirt.

Belle shook his hand gracefully. "Hello. I'm Belle French. This is Rhiannon, my soon to be granddaughter. It's my husband's second marriage, you see, but my first. We're not having anything terribly fancy, we have small families, but we would like the cake to be something special."

"I understand. And all wedding cakes should be memorable on this day," said Chris eagerly. He indicated the cake slices. "Feel free to taste these. Sebastian and I have selected the five most popular ones for you to try. But if you don't like any of them, we have others on the back."

He began naming the kinds of cake—a French vanilla with strawberry parfait filling, a chocolate with chocolate cherry ganache filling, a golden yellow cake with cannoli cream filling with whipped cream frosting, a carrot cake with cream cheese filling, and the last was a rich German chocolate cake with peanut butter and real banana filling with a light peanut butter frosting.

Rhiannon and Belle sampled each cake slice, finding all of them incredible . . .but after they tried the chocolate peanut butter one they both looked at each other and said, "I love it! And so will the boys!" For both Rumple and Bae had a chocolate addiction and also peanut butter as well.

Chris grinned at Sebastian. "Did I not say it, Seb? They would pick the chocolate peanut butter surprise?"

"You did, _caro_!" laughed Sebastian. "Chris always knows. It's the artist in him."

"What do you do?"

"I bake the cakes and desserts," Sebastian replied.

For the next hour, Belle, Rhiannon, and Chris were enspelled looking at the cake book, then picking their own designs for it which Chris sketched out. Finally they settled on a replica fairy tale castle with a chocolate fountain in the middle with chocolate swans swimming on it, you could dip strawberries into the chocolate once you cut the cake. There were eatable sugared items on the cake in the courtyard—a book, a chipped cup, a spinning wheel, and a rose.

"Now we come to the piece de resistance!" Chris declared. "The bride and groom models. Have you a picture of what you'll be wearing? Of your lucky husband?"

"Actually, yes. Here on my phone. I'll be wearing my mother's own ball gown, and Rum, well, look." She brought up a picture on her phone of herself in her mother's beautiful rum pink gown and then of Rumple in a beautifully tailored mulberry coat and his leather pants. "We-err—wanted to have a fairy tale wedding theme."

Chris was mesmerized . . .at the picture of Rumple. He put a hand to his chest. "Be still my heart! That man is . . .just scrumptious!" He clicked on the phone to reveal another shot of Rumple from the back. "Oh my God, Sebby! Will you _look_ at his butt!"

Sebastian leaned over his shoulder, appreciation also in his gaze. "_Molto bello, eh?"_ He nudged his partner and winked saucily.

"Yes, he is fine!" Chris sighed. Then he cast his boyfriend an annoyed look. "Now quit ogling him, Seb! I'm right here!"

"A thousand apologies, _caro_," Sebastian said and bowed to him, his eyes twinkling. Clearly they had played this game before.

Belle fought to keep from gaping at this exchange. As her brain tried to process exactly what was implied here, or rather openly admitted, Rhiannon nudged her and whispered, "Don't worry, Belle. They're not gonna steal Grandpa from you—they're gay. They just like to look."

"They do?" she whispered, slightly uncomfortable, since those who were known to like men never admitted it in their realm. It was seen as rather too odd.

"Uh huh. Dad's gay artist friends stare at his butt all the time when he works, and he just laughs and says they can't have a piece of it," the girl told her artlessly.

Belle's eyes widened. "Oh my!"

"And then they give him advice on clothes and romance, cause they think he ought to go out again."

Belle wasn't sure how to respond to that. Her new stepson got propositioned by gay men? Her husband was being admired by two gay bakers? What a very different world this was from Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest.

Then she shrugged and figured it didn't matter. Let them goggle at Rumple's butt if they wanted to. They would never have the real thing anyway, it was harmless, and even kind of funny now that she thought about it. She wondered what Rumple would think, considering he never really thought of himself as anything anyone would desire—even her. She even had to admit, staring at that leather clad behind had been one of her guilty pleasures as his servant in the Dark Castle. And she hid a rather guilty smirk.

"See something you like, gentlemen?" she queried with a hint of a sultry tone in her voice.

"Ahem! Err . . .your husband is very handsome!" Sebastian coughed.

"Yes, he is . . .and you're very lucky to be marrying him," Chris agreed, blushing faintly.

"I know," Belle nodded. "And he has more going for him than looks. He's a sweet and giving man who loves his family first ad foremost."

"He owns the antique store that just opened up," Rhiannon informed them. "Golden Spinner Antiques and Curiosities."

"Really? I love antiques!" Sebastian cried. "Chris, we need to pay this man a visit. See if he has a Chippendale secretary."

"He has a few pieces of Chippendale," Belle recalled.

"Good! Then we can go and see this weekend."

"Okay, but we're just looking, Seb," his partner cautioned, and he left no doubt as to what else he was implying.

The other man rolled his eyes. "I know. I drink only with my eyes," then he gave his partner an affectionate clap on the shoulder.

Rhiannon covered her mouth to smother a giggle. Sometimes grown ups were downright weird!

But the cake was sure to be a masterpiece, for she knew artists when she saw them, having been around the best ones her whole life.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

The next store they went to was a store that sold bridal gowns, to try and find something for Rhiannon to wear, but to the child's dismay, nothing she saw really caught her eye. "Maybe we should try a different store, honey?" Belle suggested.

"I don't know another one," sighed Rhiannon. "Maybe I'm just too picky."

"No . . .you're like your grandfather," Belle corrected. Then she had an idea. "Hey, you know your grandpa used to make clothes . . .what if you asked him to make you a dress, Rhee?"

"You think he would?" she smiled eagerly at Belle.

"I think he would love to," Belle said. Knowing Rumple, he would be very touched.

"Then let's go back to his shop and ask him," the little girl said, and she half-dragged Belle out of the shop.

But as they walked back, Belle spotted a Red Robin, and she asked Rhiannon if she wished to stop for lunch. The girl agreed, and soon they were eating a signature Royal Red Robin burger with an egg on top and fresh Angus beef burgers. They saluted each other with their iced teas and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

When they got back to Rumple's shop, they found Sherry enjoying some curried chicken in the back room with him, having made a deal for an enchanted storybook that when read aloud had scenes come out of it. She had traded some squid ink for it, and was telling Rumple some of the things that had happened in Storybrooke while they were gone.

Cora had tried to frame Regina for the false murder of Archie, and broke Hook out of jail to help her do it. But Emma and Jeff had managed to figure out it was a set up and turned the tables on her, clearing Regina's name. Now, however, the town was under martial law—since Cora had taken it over.

"It's part of the reason I'm here," Sherry told him. "I don't want to be involved in a witch war. I had enough of that with genies back in Al Zahir. No thanks!"

"You could always stay here until things blow over," suggested Rumple. "I know a good hotel."

"Thanks, I'll consider it." Sherry said.

"Consider yourself invited to our wedding too," Belle said, embracing her friend. "Rumple, I think your granddaughter wants to ask you something."

She drew Sherry out of the room and began talking about the wedding cake, giving Rhiannon and Rumple some privacy.

Gold looked up and said, "Well, dearie? What do you want to talk about?"

"A dress. Like a dress to wear to your wedding," Rhiannon said.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"I can't find any I like. And Belle said—she said—maybe you could make me one? Unless that's too much trouble."

"Not at all, Rhee. I would be honored to make you one," he said sincerely.

"You would? For real?"

"Really and truly, dearie," he hugged her. "Now, what sort of dress did you have in mind?" he asked, getting out his measuring tape. It had been a long time since he had made clothing, but some things you never forget.

Belle peeked in the door half-an-hour later and saw the two with their heads together over some preliminary sketches Rumple had made, and she thought how much she was going to enjoy having a granddaughter.

**Page~*~*~*~Break**

Bae stood in his new midnight blue velvet doublet and soft caramel colored leather pants and gold half-cloak, in keeping with the fairy tale theme, watching Belle walk down the aisle on Maurice's arm. He flashed a grin at his papa, who looked totally debonair in his noble lord's costume, which was really pieced together from clothing he had kept from his stint as the Dark One. He could see the love shining in Rumple's eyes as he watched his bride approach, and Bae couldn't help but think he had never seen his papa look so handsome, and so much in love until now.

It almost reminded him of his and Sorcha's own wedding day, and how he had felt the same nervousness and awe as his swanmay had met him in their ancestral chapel and they had pledged their troth to each other with all of her family as witnesses. It had been the best day of his life, and the only other that had come close to it had been holding the newborn Rhiannon in his arms. This one, he thought, was the third best.

"Breathe, Papa," he whispered to the older man, when it looked as if Rumple would forget how as Belle came to meet him.

"I am," his father whispered back, though for an instant he had paused when he first saw Belle in her brilliant rum pink gown.

On Rumple's other side, Rhiannon hissed, "She looks as pretty as a princess in a storybook."

"So do you," Bae winked at his daughter, who wore a one-of-a-kind creation by Mr. Gold. Her dress was silver and lilac, with swan's feathers etche into the full skirt, which came to her ankles. It had a sweetheart neckline with a bit of feathery edging and a swan in flight in silvery thread sewn upon the bodice. She wore Sorcha's pearl earrings in her ears, which Bae had saved for her for just such an occasion. Her hair was braided and piled atop her head and a crown of irises was atop her head. There was a lump in his throat when he looked at her. _Ah, Sorcha, I wish you could see her now. She's so beautiful, our baby girl._

It was strange but he had the most distinct feeling that his wife was there—not in the flesh, but in spirit—and if he would just look behind him—there she would be. But then Belle was putting her hand in Rumple's, and Moe was kissing her on the cheek, and the justice of the peace was speaking.

"Raibeart and Belle wish to speak their own vows to each other, in lieu of the more common ones we use at such civil ceremonies," he said. Then he gestured to Rumple to begin first.

"I, Raibeart Gold, make you, Belle French, this wedding pledge." Rumple began, his voice carrying to every part of the congregation.

"You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself,  
But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.  
You cannot command me, for I am a free person,  
But I shall serve you in those ways you require.  
And the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.  
I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night.  
And the eyes into which I smile in the morning.  
I pledge to you the first bite from my meat,  
And the first drink from my cup.  
I pledge to you my living and dying, equally in your care,  
And tell no strangers our grievances.

I give to you my heart, to hold in your keeping forever

And all the love I possess to you, and you alone.

For you are my light of my days and always shall be.  
This is my wedding vow to you.  
This is a marriage of equals."

There were tears in Belle's eyes as she repeated the vows he had spoken, save at the end she said, "You are best thing that has ever happened to me, for sometimes the best teacups are chipped."

The justice then asked for the rings, which Rhiannon brought to them, and Rumple slid the ring on Belle's finger, saying, "With this ring, as a symbol of my love and affection, I thee wed."

Belle took his hand in her own, and slipped his ring on his hand, "With this ring, as a symbol of my love and affection, I thee wed."

"By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride, Mr. Gold."

The wedding bands were beautiful woven Celtic eternity knots of gold and white gold intertwined, and had been spun by Rumple himself. Each had a protection spell woven into the metal, so that both of them would know if the other were ever in danger of their life, and be able to come or to find each other.

Rumple drew Belle into his arms and kissed her passionately, giving her, in that single kiss, everything he felt, everything he was, and all that he would ever be. For the first time in his life he held nothing back.

Belle felt the moment when he freed himself from the prison of self-doubt and fear, irrevocably and forever, and gave to her all that he was. She felt his passion and his love and it swept over her and gave her soul wings. She drank his kiss into herself like fine wine, and then returned it in full measure.

As they kissed, Bae felt his eyes grow suddenly misty and as he dashed at them with his hand, he saw out of the corner of his eye, a glowing vision of a woman with swan's wings and blue-black hair with luminous amber eyes clad in a simple white shift raise her hands and throw something—that looked like silver and gold sparkles—over the couple.

_"I give ye the blessing of Angus Og, god of love, to sustain ye for all yer days. May ye be happy and blessed for all the days of yer life."_

Bae felt a shiver go through him as he heard those words, spoken in a voice he thought he would never hear again save in his dreams. "Sorcha . . ."

The spirit turned, and gazed at him, her eyes blazing with love, and whispered, "_I shall see ye again in yer dreams, my bonny braw lad. I love ye, Baelfire Gold, forever and always. Swans mate for life." _Then she blew him a kiss that he felt throughout every pore of his being.

As he bowed his head in benediction, he felt her blow another kiss to their daughter, and though he didn't see it, he heard Rhiannon's soft intake of breath, and her whispered, "Mama!"

Everyone present felt a wave of utter serenity, peace, and love flow through them, for the blessing of a swanmay, even a spirit, was a powerful thing.

"Rumple! Did you feel that?" Belle asked through her joyful tears.

"Aye, dearie. Cherish it, for we shall never feel the like of the blessing of the child of Angus Og again," he muttered. Then he turned and nodded respectfully to the spirit hovering above them. "My thanks, Sorcha Lir Gold."

_"Welcome to the family, Rumplestiltskin and Belle Gold. May ye walk always in beauty."_

Then she waved and disappeared from view.

Belle took Rumple's hand and they walked back down the aisle amid cheers and thrown handfuls of rice. Sherry was there, as was Moe, and several of Bae's colleagues, plus Sebastian and Chris from Celebrations, who had purchased several of Rumple's antiques and were now his best customers.

As they emerged from the gazebo into the bright Manhattan sunshine, they were greeted by yet another amazing sight—a flight of four swans were soaring overhead, giving their distinctive trumpeting call.

The bride and groom paused to look up at the exhilarating sight and as they did so, Rhiannon clasped Bae's hand and cried, "Dad, look! A flight of swans! You know what that means, right?"

"I sure do," he replied. "It means that love is hope and in hope you find the heart you've lost."

She looked up at him, her amber eyes shining. "And you have, right, Dad?"

He smiled back. "Yes, swanmay. When my papa came looking for me, he brought me back the piece of my heart I had lost long ago. And now the circle is complete and I am whole again."

For he had learned long before that family was all, and when you finally found the family you lost, you never let it go.

** A/N: and so we come to the end of this trilogy of stories . . .hope you all enjoyed this! Also the wedding pledge between Rumbelle was one that is based upon an ancient Celtic one which I thought particularly fitting. You'll note there is no mention of darkness weakness or dying or being a monster which I felt totally unappropriate for wedding vows on the show. You don't point out shortcomings in vows meant to be hopeful and loving.**


End file.
